It is such an odd thing. He comes and goes like a dream.
Hello, goodbye.
This is not the way of most thirteen-year-old boys. The healthy and the happy ones stay, mostly. Sure, they go for short periods of time. Sleep-away camp. Sleep overs with friends. School trips. Visits to Grandmas and Grandpas and aunts and uncles and cousins.
But their home is with their parents, their siblings, their dogs or their cats. Their neighborhood is theirs to roam. They feel comfortable in it. Their community -- the one in which their house sits and their parents pay taxes -- opens its arms to them.
Not my boy. He had to go a hundred miles from here to find a community that would open its arms to him. To find a home that was not bounded by four walls, and companionship that was not always and only his mother.
If the cost was seeing Lars and Saskia and the Hellacious Hound and me only twice a month, it was worth it to all of us. I know he misses us. He misses this little house and the butterscotch couch and the trampoline out back. He misses sleeping in his own bed.
But what I have not quite figured out is, which home is his REAL home? Ours? The one he flits in and out of like a dream? Or the one that lies a hundred miles from here, where his friends also live, as does the large staff that helps him navigate life and learning? The one that comes with the three people who love him more than the world, or the one where he can access just about everything he wants to do, and feel successful?
Readers, it is not just that this school has a working farm on it, and lap-bunnies in the classrooms. This is a place that can offer Benjy things like golf (yes, he goes every week to a golf course. He is learning and loving the game). And on-site batting cages. Tennis and swimming right outside his door. Access to a gym where he can lift weights. A ropes course. 3-D printers that will let him create all kinds of cool stuff. A fly-fishing pond a short drive from his current house, and just behind the house he would like to move into (and is self-advocating a strong case for said move).
I could go on and on. But it will just confuse me more. I don't know for sure which home is Ben's real home now, but I am so glad he has them both.
He's coming here tomorrow for his first two-night stay since he left us in early July. To say I'm excited would be an understatement. I'm a little scared, too. But Lars and I have a plan. We're going to keep him active the whole time. After school he plays football and Frisbee and tennis, or goes to the gym or the golf course. Here, he will get to go kayaking, play tennis, do some archery, maybe teach his younger cousins how to throw a football with just the right spin. We're going to have him plan some meals and help cook them. He is going to eat good food.
Most of all, we are going to love him and keep him as close as we should, but no closer. If I had my way I'd just hold him the entire 48 hours, but that is not, apparently, what you do with a happy and healthy 13 year old.
He's not cured. He will live with what he's got his whole life -- just like I do. And so many others, too. But he is learning to manage his Homeric catalogue of Hard Things. What a gift that is, to all of us.
Showing posts with label sports. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sports. Show all posts
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Benjy and Performance Anxiety
At home, Benjy is a great clown -- when he's happy. He's an accomplished mimic. A creative performer. There are several characters he trots out on occasion -- the "G'Day Lady" chap (sorry, he's too bizarre to describe here), and the hungry, squeaky rodent, to name just two.
But performance -- academic, musical, athletic, etc -- and the expectations that go along with it, are a heavy, heavy burden to him. Homework was part of the amalgam of stressors that landed Ben in the hospital and then a special needs school, where -- at least for now -- there is no homework, and no tests. Any time Ben senses that some other person expects something from him, he crumbles.
When we realized he was a talented violinist, when his teacher was astonished every week by his progress, the speed and facility with which he learned new pieces and new, increasingly difficult techniques, he fell apart. Practicing became a burden. He spent half his lessons curled up on the couch, or watching YouTube videos of Gil Shaham or Anne-Sophie Mutter playing whatever piece he was working on, instead of playing it himself. His teacher learned that she had to walk on eggshells if she wanted to avoid precipitating a breakdown.
Now he has entirely given up the violin, much to our dismay. Today I will be returning his rented instrument to the music store. I kept holding off, just in case he would pick it up again, but those days are over.
There is nothing Ben has tried that he's been able to follow through on. Violin, video game programming class, soccer, basketball. So far he's still fencing, and three times out of four it's going okay, but I imagine when he starts feeling the weight of expectation, from his coach, from us, from his peers, he will drop out. Maybe I'm wrong -- I hope I am -- but history would seem to back me up.
The latest thing we are going to try is a Bar Mitzvah. We have a while -- until fall 2013 -- but already I am worried. This will NOT be a standard Bar Mitzvah -- anyone who's been to one understands the magnitude of learning and performing that's involved. It will be an afternoon service just with our family, maybe a close friend or two, and Benjy will carry the Torah and recite two short prayers -- the Sh'ma, and the Torah blessing. Saskia and I can teach him these -- no need for a year of tutoring like Saskia had. That would break him.
When our Rabbi told us that a celebration of Benjy, in the form of a Bar Mitzvah, was still within reach, I cried. I am not a deeply religious person. My God is simply the strength, courage, compassion, creativity -- the potential for good -- within myself. But somehow a Bar Mitzvah for Ben feels important to me -- just as a Bat Mitzvah for Saskia did. When Saskia had her day in November of 2010 we were so deeply moved. Of course, she is a very different person than Ben.She studied for a year and offered a beautiful and heartfelt "performance" -- tons of Hebrew chanting, a lively and thoughtful exegesis of her Torah portion (the one about competition between siblings, Jacob and Esau). She was a star, as she is in so many avenues of life. We just watched her onstage in the musical Oklahoma. She is a talented singer and actress -- absolutely fearless.
For Ben, there is rarely fearlessness. But sometimes he surprises us. He'll reach out to an older kid, make a connection. He'll plunge into a new situation, willing to give it a try even if it ultimately does not work out. It's just that damn performance anxiety that's keeping him down. I try so hard not to worry about the future. You've heard me say it before, corny as it is -- One Day At a Time. But how will he ever make it in life if he cannot perform, cannot handle expectations?
I'm trying hard to figure that one out. It may take me a year, or twenty.
But performance -- academic, musical, athletic, etc -- and the expectations that go along with it, are a heavy, heavy burden to him. Homework was part of the amalgam of stressors that landed Ben in the hospital and then a special needs school, where -- at least for now -- there is no homework, and no tests. Any time Ben senses that some other person expects something from him, he crumbles.
When we realized he was a talented violinist, when his teacher was astonished every week by his progress, the speed and facility with which he learned new pieces and new, increasingly difficult techniques, he fell apart. Practicing became a burden. He spent half his lessons curled up on the couch, or watching YouTube videos of Gil Shaham or Anne-Sophie Mutter playing whatever piece he was working on, instead of playing it himself. His teacher learned that she had to walk on eggshells if she wanted to avoid precipitating a breakdown.
Now he has entirely given up the violin, much to our dismay. Today I will be returning his rented instrument to the music store. I kept holding off, just in case he would pick it up again, but those days are over.
There is nothing Ben has tried that he's been able to follow through on. Violin, video game programming class, soccer, basketball. So far he's still fencing, and three times out of four it's going okay, but I imagine when he starts feeling the weight of expectation, from his coach, from us, from his peers, he will drop out. Maybe I'm wrong -- I hope I am -- but history would seem to back me up.
The latest thing we are going to try is a Bar Mitzvah. We have a while -- until fall 2013 -- but already I am worried. This will NOT be a standard Bar Mitzvah -- anyone who's been to one understands the magnitude of learning and performing that's involved. It will be an afternoon service just with our family, maybe a close friend or two, and Benjy will carry the Torah and recite two short prayers -- the Sh'ma, and the Torah blessing. Saskia and I can teach him these -- no need for a year of tutoring like Saskia had. That would break him.
When our Rabbi told us that a celebration of Benjy, in the form of a Bar Mitzvah, was still within reach, I cried. I am not a deeply religious person. My God is simply the strength, courage, compassion, creativity -- the potential for good -- within myself. But somehow a Bar Mitzvah for Ben feels important to me -- just as a Bat Mitzvah for Saskia did. When Saskia had her day in November of 2010 we were so deeply moved. Of course, she is a very different person than Ben.She studied for a year and offered a beautiful and heartfelt "performance" -- tons of Hebrew chanting, a lively and thoughtful exegesis of her Torah portion (the one about competition between siblings, Jacob and Esau). She was a star, as she is in so many avenues of life. We just watched her onstage in the musical Oklahoma. She is a talented singer and actress -- absolutely fearless.
For Ben, there is rarely fearlessness. But sometimes he surprises us. He'll reach out to an older kid, make a connection. He'll plunge into a new situation, willing to give it a try even if it ultimately does not work out. It's just that damn performance anxiety that's keeping him down. I try so hard not to worry about the future. You've heard me say it before, corny as it is -- One Day At a Time. But how will he ever make it in life if he cannot perform, cannot handle expectations?
I'm trying hard to figure that one out. It may take me a year, or twenty.
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