Tonight I thought I'd sit down and word vomit whatever was on my mind, but the topic on my mind doesn't really seem appropriate for the interwebs, so...um...
School started roughly two weeks ago. Last Friday, one kid missed school with a sinus infection. He was miserable this morning when I got him up for school, but he went. His dad picked him up for me after school and took him to purchase football cleats. Apparently, he fell asleep in the car and woke up feeling terrible, so he stayed over there tonight. The relationship I have with B's stepmom and dad is a unique one. We work ridiculously well together. We don't always agree, but with the schedule we keep, we have to be adaptable.
To me, it's a lot like a marriage. Clearly, I'm not the expert on this topic, but I'm already putting my Sociology: Marriage & Family class to good use. We collectively ebb and flow; one of us assumes more responsibility while the other deals with stuff they have going on, and vice versa. It can come to an ugly head every once in a while...primarily when all of our schedules conflict and somebody has to cancel or reschedule. A lot of the time this is me, and although it can be an inconvenience to reschedule or plan around something that comes up unexpectedly, I always do it without hesitation.
He's my baby boy. It's what you do.
The other kid rarely gets sick, but when he does, he knows how to go big. This year started off with a major bang for him. As an 8th grader, he has the option to take a foreign language (Spanish) for high school credit. It's the most difficult class offered at his school, and he's not really giving it a chance. He's a perfectionist (I don't know where he gets it), and if something doesn't come easily to him the first time he tries, he writes it off and pretends it doesn't exist. Case in point: Math for the last 2 years.
Amen, brother. I'm right there with you on that one.
Anyway, last night everything he'd been bottling up for the last couple of weeks just exploded. I heard things I'd never heard from him before, and all of his anger and frustration was aimed at me. I get it. You always blame the people who are up in your business all the time, but those people? Well, they're probably the ones who care about you the most. While my boy was in tears telling me that there was nobody who cared about him, tears were streaming down my face as I listened to this hurt and broken boy-in-a-man's-body. As I named the people who would have his back anytime he needed them, I made sure to choose people who weren't family. The argument had already been made "They have to...they're related to me." And as much as I wanted to, I knew that wasn't the time to teach the lesson about how just because someone is related to you doesn't automatically mean they support you."
So, after he finally stopped sobbing and had hiccupped himself to sleep, I turned on the hall light, and looked at his face. Even in sleep, it was clear that there was hurt and fear and self-hate. And so I did what I need to: I leaned my head against his bed and I prayed. I prayed until I was yawning and my foot had fallen asleep. And then I went into my room where I had stationed my little and looked at his face: peaceful, relaxed, and taking up all of the space. I crawled into bed next to him and I prayed until I fell asleep.
When I woke up this morning, I knew three things: 1. Things were going to change around here. 2. N needed today to regroup. and 3. I called his counselor at school and talked to her for a good 20 minutes.
The hard truth is that middle school is probably one of the worst times in a kid's life. I know it was crazy-awkward for me, but I LOVED the people...one of the major benefits of spending my middle school years in a small, close-knit community northwest of Wichita, KS! There are so many changes, not just physically but mentally and emotionally, too. The self-labeling begins, and then the labeling of other people begins, and middle school kids are brutal.
And now that I think about it, my other word vomit would have not only been less "heavy," but also wildly entertaining, albeit entirely inappropriate.
Perhaps tomorrow...I should have a wealth of new material after filling in for the music teacher at our elementary school!
Aubs
No comments:
Post a Comment