The transition
Two weeks and some change, J and W will be headed back to school and we’ll be doing that dance again. When J was younger (and I was younger) I would anticipate the coming school year to be “that year.” I would ridiculously hope/expect that in the new school year, miracles would happen. Even though I knew then as I do now that autism has no cure, some part of my heart hoped that this would be the year that J would be “cured” in some way. This would be the year where the speech delays would disappear, his behaviors would disappear, his sensory issues would disappear, and then we could really, really work on the academic stuff. This would be the year that J would finally catch up. After all, it’s just expressive language that he really needs to catch up on, and expressive language would cure his social problems. After all, most of his behaviors come from his anxiety, and if we could just teach him how to manage that anxiety, then he wouldn’t be distracted and disruptive in the classroom. After all, J just needs to learn how to tolerate loud noises–that’s really the biggest problem he has when it comes to sensory issues and once he overcomes that, he’ll really be able to focus on his assignments. On paper my plan looked good. Just three boxes to check right?
Every August I would get myself psyched up. Yep, this year would be the year. J would have that perfect teacher, you know, the kind you read about and see about in books or movies, Helen Keller’s Anne Sullivan or Temple Grandin’s Dr. Carlock. The teacher who would have that moment that would open J’s mind and everything will just click and he would finally be connected in our world. J was going to check all those boxes off. His life and my life would finally get easier.
I’m older now and know better that J isn’t going to have a miracle year. J is going to take baby steps, just like he has every year before and slowly we’ll make progress. J isn’t going to have that perfect teacher like Helen Keller or Temple Grandin, he’s going to have lots of great teachers that are going to positively contribute to his learning and growth in their own way.
It’s funny how things change when you get older. How much more “real” you get in your expectations. I suppose when you’re younger and less experienced you hold onto that ridiculous hope to make it through the next few, days, weeks, months, and years. Then you realize you have no control over your own life (let alone someone else’s) and you just roll with what’s going on right now. You learn that life isn’t really about the “end of eras” and “new beginnings,” it’s just this one fluid experience.
Life is just one long constant transition.
Two weeks and some change and in some ways it feels like life will be the same as it always has been. We run every day, we read every day, we work on math every day, just like we did during the school year, just like we will in a few weeks. The new year will be peppered with new things–hard things and surprising things.
Totally familiar and unexpected all at the same time.
