Sometimes Turning On The Light Helps

I remember when I was in intermediate and high school, there were days that I just knew were going to suck.  There was a certain tang to the atmosphere.  An absence of something or a deepening of space between people and things.  Everything looked and felt just slightly different-- as if I were a person living one of my lives in a very similar but different dimension.  This was not a dimension in which I'd been born a boy or was confined to a wheelchair because I'd been in some horrible accident, no.  It was one in which the differences were minute, where everything LOOKED okay, but really was covered in a fine mist of not--quite-rightness.  Maybe I had a maroon backpack instead of a red one.

And those days were sad days.  Those days were the ones I found it hard to connect to my peers. It was hard not to look at strangers or even people I knew and not envy their lives and the ease they seemed to experience while walking in their shoes.  Those were the days I felt I was going to choke on my own despair.

And for some reason I cannot explain, I feel that tonight.  It didn't start off this way, but somehow, without those signifiers, I feel great sadness for my son.  Not even for myself. For him.  Because I felt that the other day when I tried to register him for school and walked out unsuccessful, and I had tried to deny it.  I had to feign confidence so that Noah wouldn't doubt and lose confidence himself.  But I worry for him, the changes.  New school, new challenges, new friends, and people can be so cruel.

So far, he's been lucky, I think.  I always like to think of him as my adaptable child because he seems to adapt so well to change.  Every state, every school, every move he seemed to bounce back fairly quickly, without the need for a life jacket.  So far, Noah hasn't even shown much hesitation, either.  I know he must worry, but his outlook for the most part seems optimistic.

I just don't want him to have those wrong-dimension kind of days.  I know he will, and I know he must have had some by now, anyway.  It's not unreasonable for a mother to want her child to never feel hurt or lonely or despair.  I remember feeling so miserable some mornings, wondering how I was ever going to finish the day without dying.  Except I also remember that maybe by lunch, I'd found a way to cope and things weren't so bad by the end of the day.  I'd made it.  There are still some days I feel that way, and in fact there were many days in between school and now that I felt that way, and I guess the ones I had back in the day served to teach me how to cope with them as an adult.

I do things now to distract myself, to keep myself from descending into self-pity.  I know Noah will learn the same.  Doesn't mean I stop wanting to protect him, though.