Stabs in the Dark

For as long as we have been a family, we have either worked in or gone to school.  Summer is our  time to regroup, travel and laze around before the fall comes.  The fall is our January 1, the start of the new year.  It is a comfortable routine: new spiral notebooks,  new teachers for the kids and new students and sometimes new administrators for Tom and I.  My friend describes the back to school procession and the ensuing hubbub as being shot out of a cannon and landing at the end of June.  And that is how it has been for us.  Vetting the school scene for Cesare: assertively but not too assertively spelling out Cesare's IEP for his new teachers and therapists, reminding bus drivers he seizes if the bus is too hot on those waning days of summer and making sure that the school nurse has every conceivable form signed and delivered.    For Griffin, I have been the gnat in his ear reminding him to plan ahead..record homework somewhere and moderate his game time at home to squeeze in a little studying time.  It is like being violently launched into space, but not the unknown.

This fall, however,  is all uncharted territory.  Now high school graduates, my boys are stepping out.  Griffin leaves for college in eleven days and counting.  Is he ready? Is any freshman ready?  I cannot be his organizer and time keeper anymore.  He'll land on his feet, but I won't be there to see it.

Cesare lives utterly in the now, lucky fellow.  He is not a planner like his mom.  But transition to the next phase of his life requires some planning. Pulling teeth, I tell you.  I thought we had a plan for Ces to take a couple of courses at the Community College and work in the grant-funded-job coach-assisted factory job he was ushered into this summer for a couple of days a week.  Cesare seemed to be ok with that.  I suggested he consider a two year course to become certified as a  Veterinary Technician.  That sounded just fine a couple of months ago, but as we're getting closer Ces has been asking, "why college?".   Why indeed.  Why anything?  I feel as though I'm swimming in a soup..a chowder really...dodging chunky obstacles in my way.  After all of the sometimes questionable guidance we received during Cesare's entire compulsory education, suddenly it is very, very quiet.  No CSE meetings.  No clear direction or assistance.

I tell Cesare that factory work, while diverting and producing a small paycheck seems kind of cool it will feel decidedly uncool and quite boring after a number of months.  I tell him that school provides not just stimulation for his brain, but provides a chance at social connections and recreation.  He looks at me blankly.  He's very happy sitting home and playing his XBOX, thank you.  But, I tell him,  there is more to life.  These existential conversations have come up before, and have largely fell flat I believe.  I am hoping that there will come a day that through the fog of meds and the emotional burden of "having a disability" to say nothing of the stress of knowing your disorder can creep up and utterly debilitate you without warning, Cesare will consider the future.  I hope that he will have the capacity to ask the bigger questions about his life:  what does he want? and, what does he want to leave behind?  Until then, I fill the uncomfortable role of trying to give him some direction and motivation.  I wish I knew in what direction to point him.