The Never Normal

How’s it going to be
When there’s no one there to talk to
Between you and me?

~ Third Eye Blind

I haven’t been writing much, except for work.  I am a hermit in my house like a winter bear.  It feels cozy-nice.  Plus I do truly good things for my job, and from home where it is easy to hermitize. However, I realize I need to move my limbs and go out and be somewhat social.  Yesterday I went for a mile walk, which is only 20% of what my pedometer app recommends.  But I figure a mile in my own moccasins is better than no miles on the couch.

I shall emerge groundhog-esque tomorrow for a doctor appointment, to have breakfast with my dad, and to visit my Uncle J in the hospital.  Saturday there is always Boo, which forces me out and away from home to see my sweet son.  Last week I played him Meanwhile, Rick James (Jonah calls it “the clapping song” and can do all that clapping in time) — Boo and I danced all around the living room, of course mostly in circles, singing and laughing…I hadn’t played it for him in years but something clicked in his head, and he remembered and requested it.  He requests teachers and babysitters from years ago, too.

He remembers things, my Boo.

He is also clever, and has a fantastic invented communication system to navigate the maze around which his verbal skills cannot puzzle out just yet.  Let’s say he wants a car ride, but he also wants to make sure that it’s not the car ride back to his residence.  What he will say to communicate this is “Wanna take a bath?” which makes no sense to anyone but Andy, me, and my mother.  What he is really saying is can we go for a car ride now and then come back here again after that so I can take a bath or at least not have to go back to the residence just yet?

Andy decoded all this.  I take no credit.

Not an hour after the happy dancing clapping song,  Jonah is screaming in Andy’s bedroom on the Big Blue Bed because he’d hit Andy and is trying his damnedest to attack him.  Hard.  I stay close, ready to help, watching as Jonah’s kicks hit Andy’s kidneys, his face, his torso, wanting to jump in and help but Andy told me not to, he always tells me not to, my mother in the kitchen nervous nervous nervous all the happy dancing energy lost in this new development.

And then it is over, and Boo is requesting Cranberry Guster? (What he calls their Easy Wonderful CD) because I am trying to re-expand his musical choices beyond Prince (sorry, Andy).  Boo remembers the Guster days of course and loved when we put it on.  My mother would like him to listen to The Sound of Music but I’ll settle for Cake or Guster or even Snoop Dog (or it is Wolf now)?  Less Lady Gaga and more They Might Be Giants.  I just want him to listen to and love lots of different music.

These days I feel so much like half a mother, and it’s too hard to explain to people who try to reassure me I am of course a whole mother and blah blah blah.   Facebook doesn’t help.  Everyone has stories, accomplishments, outings to share.  There’s too much silence in my house.  I turn on TV just to hear the noise (instead of embracing the silence as I should) and I feel bad for those who live alone.  I have two pets with me during the day and a partner at night but I do not have my child and I know now he will likely never live with me again.

For a while I think I assumed his placement would be temporary, that he would get better like in a hospital and then come home.  No.  That’s not right.  I don’t think I assumed anything, actually.  I was in a place of desperation and there was no extra time for anything but panic and aggression, emergency and breakdown.

I spoke with his case worker at school and deteriorated into tears.  I am Queen of the Endless Questions.  My prayers are please and thank you.  And it’s so hard for me to talk about Jonah.  Thank God I write.

Has this post deteriorated into rambling?  Ramble on…

I do want to communicate with someone who also has placed an only child in residential care.   I can talk to Andy but we almost never talk about that.  I feel like such a tiny demographic.

“I am an island…..”     ~ Paul Simon

No, that won’t work.  In that song an island never cries.

Here’s a picture or two instead of a stereotypical quote:

nothing beats a little daddy love

Jonah invented a new suck-your-thumb-while-giving-a-gang-signal

Love you, sweetheart.

Mama see you soon.