Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks

It’s early Monday morning and we’re headed north at a new time. He sobs in the backseat, and I want to scream. Summer has begun.

This change in schedule, and route, has rendered us both a mess. I get it, but I still want to eject myself from the car and parachute away. It’s the beginning of the summer. Heat and potty-training and togetherness loom on the horizon and I have a hard time appreciating any of it, weeks stretching ahead with time to fill. Oh, I’ve made lists: skills to master, activities to accomplish, appointments to keep. But around and between and within those lists lurks the anxiety that threatens, always, to steal the joy. The fear that deletes the moment, the now, by making it one of a million, reducing it to a hurdle that must be crossed.

It’s 8:30 am and I’m exhausted.

By the time he’s on the horse, the tears have disappeared and he’s grinning at me from across the ring. The next afternoon we try another something new. “Let’s go karate!” he says to me in an echo of what I’ve been telling him for days now, the preparation for our viewing of a class and a meeting with one of the instructors. The Kid willingly follows the instructor into a private studio and imitates some moves but mostly checks the place out and grins at me: “Karate.” I’m told what I knew I would be–that they start at five and he should wait until then, but he’ll be ready because he’s willing. I think about the music class two summers ago, Little Brother distending my belly and adding to the discomfort I was navigating due to TK’s unwillingness. We’ve come so far. We head across to the other studio to watch a class but within minutes it’s clear that TK isn’t going to abide the rule of silence. We get a look from the sensai that is perfectly innocuous but by the time we’re in the car I’m a kid again and I’ve been sent to the principal’s office, or I’ve failed a test, or not been picked for the team, and as TK chatters (!) happily in the backseat, I’m in quiet tears before we’ve left the parking lot.

I know it’s ridiculous–I know that the chances they would have broken a rule and let him start early, that he would have pulled a Karate Kid the second we walked in, were nonexistent. I know that we weren’t getting in trouble when we got the look. But something tells me not to brush off the tears, not to pretend the sadness isn’t there. Something tells me to feel it, ridiculous or not, because this may be the only way past it and into where we need to be–this honoring of the complexity of emotions that reside within me, and–I’m beginning to see–him. I’m no longer the kid who thinks the only choice is embarrassment, that I’m just a silly weirdo who needs to be fixed before I’m validated. And because I’m not the kid who thought that, I know The Kid won’t be either, because the grace that is living and active in and more powerful than me will not skip a generation. And it’s bigger than how I feel: big enough to let me feel it, and meet me in it, and walk me through it. So I cry, even if it’s stupid, because as I cry, the tears wash the lies away so that the truth becomes clearer, gently flowing in as the fear ebbs. I still feel sad, but it’s a hopeful sad. Soon it will just be hopeful. I’ve come so far.

The next day, because I have apparently decided to front-load this first week of summer with all the hardest shit, The Husband and I dress TK in his swim gear and head to the aquatic center for an evaluation. This instructor is trained to help kids with sensory issues, and she’s great–but that doesn’t stop TK from losing his mind as she gently leads him to the water. As she moves around the pool with him and the tears roll down his face, I mirror him from the bench. TH holds my hand as I ugly cry: “It’s just so hard.” In my mind I waver again over whether we’re doing the right thing to teach him this skill that could save his life, and I know it’s ridiculous–I even laugh a little at it, at myself–but let the tears flow anyway. Within minutes, it’s over and TK is happy in the backseat. I’m getting there.

Another morning a friend of mine brings a friend of TK’s and we say it: “I just wish it would be easier sometimes.” And just like that, we’re not alone. It’s not easier, but we’re not alone. Later in the day I head downstairs to participate with the therapist in TK’s potty training, and while I wonder how long he’ll be in pull-ups and rue this over-a-year-long-so-far process, TK shoots me the widest grin from the toilet. I make a silly face and he laughs. I wanted to cry, and now I’m laughing too.

The next night we’re at dinner with friends, sans kids, and I go to the bathroom. There’s a line. Through the speakers a song plays and immediately the hair band transports me back to sixth grade and I’m the awkward kid who just wanted someone to ask her to dance, wishing she belonged somewhere, A million feelings rush through me while I’m waiting to pee. For God’s sake, I think–even a chorus from a Chicago song can leave me a wreck. This can’t be healthy. “Look away,” the voice echoes through the stalls, and I can’t get over how ridiculous it is, this barrage of emotions always knocking at my door. I wish it would just be easier. Then I realize that if it were, I wouldn’t be me. And TK wouldn’t be TK.

The next week we’re in the car again at the new time that is getting less new, and no one is crying. We’re singing about the Schuyler sisters, and soon he’s on the horse grinning. As they circle the ring, his therapist calls out to me: “He’s finally realizing the power of his voice!” I smile and nod, and remember what someone had said recently on some podcast, or maybe it was Chicago, about shadows. How there must be light for them to exist. I’m sitting in the shade, in the shadows, and the heat’s not as bad here. Underneath the ease of the moment, my smile and his, there is a current of emotion, always, sometimes so strong I can barely breathe. But underneath that? Is another current, truer than any feeling that would threaten to undo me. A river full of living water that carries me home.