Waiting Rooms
This morning I sat in the waiting room for the first of three appointments at the Autism Diagnostic Clinic, relieved to finally be having this first appointment — if only to be that much closer to getting them all over with. I stared at my shoes and silently counted the stitching in the toes, not even tempted by the possibility of a gossip magazine at the bottom of the pile of Times and Food Networks. Just worn down by the worn out chairs in all the waiting rooms in all the world — worn out by sum total of all the worried souls passing time in their presence.
Some days, I like to people watch. Look around and give other mamas a confident, “you’ve got this” smile, or an empathetic, “we’re in this together” sigh. But today, today I stared at my shoes. I stared at my shoes in yet another waiting room, in another building, waiting for another specialist who will ask another long line of questions that will hopefully one day lead to answers. Or maybe I’m not even looking for answers anymore, maybe I sense that there is no clear solution, no A and B that will lead us to C. I can’t just fix this, even with my organized lists and copious research. Fixing isn’t even the right goal, I know that. But what IS, then? Because staying the same isn’t really an option either.
I can’t seem to get a handle on the right things to do to give him the best possible outcome for his future, or even a better outcome today than yesterday. Maybe it’s a moving target, or maybe I just have terrible aim. So today, instead of answers, instead of a clear outline that will lead me to definable progress, I’ll just settle for hope. Hope would be life-saving, sanity-restoring, heart-mending. Even the tiniest sliver will do.
The truth is, friends, sometimes being a special-needs mama just wears me right down, like a rock battered by the force of the sea, rounded out and tossed ashore. Except I need those hard edges in this journey, so I have fight against the current. And I’m so. dang. tired. Of all the uncertainty, the second-guessing, the self-doubt. Of all the guilt over things I think I SHOULD be doing, things my meanest self tells me would finally tip the scales in his favor, things I don’t always get to because of our schedule and the other kids and well, just life. Things I don’t always get to because sometimes I just don’t want to.
And I have these moments where I desperately want to just reach out my finger and push the power button — hold it steady until everything goes black. Turn it all off, power it all down. Oh, the sweet solace of that black screen. I’d watch the dark spin around me and swallow up all those appointments, all that research and those new theories, all those best practices. Swallow up all those worries and anxiety and fear. All that noise.
Except —
I can’t fight for my baby with a blank screen, and what I want more than that darkness is his wholeness, whatever that looks like. And if it takes a million more appointments, in a million more waiting rooms, then I’ll just have to sit in a million more chairs. Because that’s what mamas do.
Keep on keeping on,
warrior parents,
we can do this.