The worry and the realities ahead
Below is a writing to share my mother-type worries. It is my attempt to share a piece of myself with you. It is not aimed at anyone and I do not feel I need anything from anyone even though you will think differently after you finish reading. I am ok. If I didn't feel these things than there might be something wrong. Thanks for being here.
This is the post I don't want to write. These are the thoughts that bring me straight to tears.
Parents unite in a mutual feeling that events like going away for college or even summer camp type events create. Natural feelings of missing their loved ones, patterns that life has changed, that we are all getting older, etc. I am not familiar with these feelings of departure big or small with Grant.
Grant is 9, going on 10 this June. I have never spent a weekend away. I can't think of a night where I haven't seen him. I have never been able to go on vacation without him. I don't have a job with travel. I don't know life without Grant anymore.
He's still a little boy and while he is the physical size of a 9 year old; his developmental age is maybe a toddler. To be experiencing the feelings of a mother sending their child to college are foreign and about a decade too early. I feel like I am saying good-bye to Grant even though it's really a "see you later".
One day, we will bring him to Baltimore and then on another day we will get him. But, neither of these dates are clear to me today. We wait for his turn. But, my thoughts are no longer about waiting for his turn, but what happens the day I turn around and leave him in MD. I still struggle to imagine what my evenings and weekends are supposed to be without him. For the last 9 years, I haven't been away from him much. I don't know what life is supposed to look like without him here in this house.
All of this separation, I predict will be made worse because he can't talk on the phone or write a letter (ahem, a text/email). I hope and assume they will utilize something like Facetime to keep us connected daily if we request this. But, he doesn't get it. I can tell. He just doesn't get that it's live and not a video he can repeat. He tells people to "start over" (meaning rewind). He has to be prompted to talk and to look. He can bore easily if he doesn't know the person. He wants to be entertained by video. He just doesn't get it is live.
How do we do this? How do we cross the country and say good-bye? How do I get on a plane and go back to work on Monday?
How do I pretend that it's ok that he's on the other side of the country? For months? A year? Longer?
How is it that I am supposed to come with terms with missing this part of his childhood? Or maybe worse yet, I am missing nothing at all?
How do we trust complete strangers? Or trust that someone else take care of his every need when I have grown used to this role?
I get it. You don't have to tell me. There IS a point to this drastic and large decision to enroll Grant intentionally into a hospital so far away. There is no choice in this topic as far as I am concerned. I know. It's maddening and depressing that this is the ONLY thing to do.
A few months ago, I deeply and truly dealt with these questions. I imagined a scenario where I am happy and enjoying my child-free life. I am out with friends, eating at nice restaurants, taking care of projects around my home, etc. I see myself flying out on weekends and using my personal days to see him in MD. And then I see another version. A version with marital crisis, uncontrollable tears, and loneliness. I think that had they called us before December, this sadder version would have been true. I wasn't ready to send him. I hadn't gotten my head in a space and ready for this. As much as this waiting period has been truly challenging for more reasons than I can possibly put into words; I am realizing in this moment how necessary it was for me to get ready.
KKI told me not to move out there when I put him on the wait list this summer. They told me they don't advise it because I need the time to heal. And I do. Dammit, I need this more than I can say. But, he's my baby. This not a luxury I feel I should be taking and I got upset by it all.
There will be absolutely no day like any other, that day, the day I drop him off and say good-bye. My heart will be broken and I will be scared, I might regret this decision for awhile, and I will most likely have some very tearful moments. Even imagining this day, is bringing up tears and fear that will only be magnified the day Scott and I go home without him.
So my work, my inner mental health work that has come out in unhealthy ways at times...will hopefully give me the peaceful, happy version KKI told me about. I am making plans. I am going to tackle things I can't do if he was home. Nothing is all that exciting, but I will embrace my kid-free life. I can choose this and I will try. it is better than the other version. At least this is what I am hoping for today.
