Dancing Elmo

I was at Target last night, wading through the Halloween costume aisle, looking in vain for a skeleton costume when I heard a bit of a commotion around the corner. A man who looked to be about 30 was making some noise, babbling...his mannerisms made it clear that he was handicapped. The noise got louder as he approached the toy aisle, and he stopped in front of an end cap that had dancing Elmos on display.

He got very excited at that point, and his companions tried to shush him a bit, but Elmo was just too much for the guy and he started dancing and singing right along with the furry little red thing in the box. Seeing the joy on his face, I couldn't help but smile. Obviously his mentality was that of a child, and to see such innocence in a 200 pound man with a 5 o'clock shadow was powerful. Good for him for being happy in his own little world.

Of course the smile I had didn't last long. I looked around and saw the other shoppers staring, some pointing, a few even laughing at this disabled man who was causing a minor scene in the toy aisle. My mind immediately wandered to my Andrew, who is autistic, largely non verbal, and considered handicapped by society's standards, though I still can't bring myself to call him "handicapped" even 6 years after he was diagnosed. He is just Andrew. My baby. If anyone ever called him "handicapped" in front of me, I'd probably punch them. If I ever saw anybody reacting to him as these shoppers were reacting to the Elmo guy, I really can't even attempt to gauge the potential violence of my reaction.

I often think of what Andrew will be like when he's 30. Will he be like the man I saw at Target, dancing and singing with a stuffed Elmo doll? Will he draw the same stares? Will people laugh at him? So there I stood, with a Halloween mask in my hand, crying like an idiot.

My poor baby. He doesn't deserve that kind of bullshit ignorant reaction. It's not his fault that he is the way he is. It's not fair that I can't somehow make the world understand so as to spare him the cruel reactions of the ignorant few.

I'm fairly convinced that the Elmo guy was completely oblivious to the assholes that surrounded him, and for that I was thankful. Nobody rained on his parade. Nobody made him feel like he was a freak. All he knew was that there was this big red toy on the end cap that totally ROCKED and that he got to play with it for a few minutes.

Elmo Guy: 1 Assholes: 0

I hope my Andrew, if he is functioning at a similar level when he's 30, is so happy and content that he won't realize how mean people can be, but I have a feeling we won't be so lucky.

Bad omens

So the friggin' Citgo sign goes up in flames today...







I draw one of two conclusions...

1. Faulty wiring. It happens, right? Coincidence, no cosmic meaning.
   
2. Sign would rather destroy itself than bear witness to another beating like the one the Sox took last night.
   

Things that made me happy today

1. Filling the tank of my car
2. Coughing up phlegm
3. My kid coming down with a virus
4. Same kid puking in the waiting room at the doctor's office
5. A lone forest green crayon stain (dried and set in) on a brand new pair of jeans
6. The passenger side window in my car falling off the track just as I pulled from the driveway

No, I've not lost my mind:

1. It only cost me $40. I've spent up to $60 in recent months.
2. I've been congested for 5 days and I'm finally coughing it all up. Whee!
3. At least it's not a bacterial infection, otherwise we'd have to take him to the hospital for an antibiotic shot (he's autistic and cannot be coaxed into taking medication orally).
4. Hey, better than puking all over Daddy's car, which is where he was 30 seconds prior to entering the waiting room.
5. The entire load of laundry got covered in magenta and green, so for one pair of jeans to survive with a single green streak was pretty freakin' lucky.
6. If it had fallen off at work, I would have had to drive home an hour with my window open and rattling violently in chilly weather.
   

Your expectations for happiness certainly take a big fuckin' dive once you reach your thirties.

Anyone out there?

Probably not, but here goes nuthin'.

First, a quick update to bring all 3 of you up to speed on the recent happenings in my life. I last left off having started a new job in a new office with a fucked up new boss. Little did I know when I started that job that it would completely consume my life and negatively affect most of my relationships.

60 hours is an average week for me these days. I rarely take a lunch or otherwise leave the building during the day. I work under unreasonable deadlines and my workload could easily be divided between 2 people. The last 2 "vacations" I took ended up being more like a "working from home" pseudo-vacation. The place literally falls apart in my absence, as we are understaffed and growing too quickly to keep up. I spend my days putting out fires and addressing various one-off mini disasters, which leaves me little time to actually do the job that I was hired to do. While my boss is very cool and allows me flexibility and autonomy, the job itself is highly stressful and I'm starting to notice the effects in my health. I've had 2 bad colds in the last 6 weeks, I'm not sleeping well, and I think I actually had a panic attack the other day.

My husband hates it. He hates that my attentions are constantly divided, that I check my email several times after I've come home, that I take phone calls at 7:30pm from programmers at my office. He's annoyed with the long hours. He certainly isn't pleased that my temper is shorter than it normally is because I'm so tired and overextended. He hates that I'm not as available to address household issues as I once was. In short, he hates my job and secretly wishes the place would burn to the ground so he could piss on the ashes.

Unfortunately, it pays, and a family of 5 in this day and age needs 2 strong incomes to maintain itself (especially in Taxachusetts), so he can't really complain as much as he'd like to.

What gets me is that I spent the first 10 years of our relationship dealing with this situation in reverse. He would work 6 or 7 days a week, wouldn't walk in until 8pm or later some nights, and would regularly take calls during dinner (which he actually still does). I didn't like it, but I dealt with it and bit my tongue because I knew he was doing what he had to do.

In recent years, his work load has lightened, almost simultaneously with my work load picking up. All I ask if for the same courtesy I extended him during all of those years, and he's having a very hard time, but I don't think it's because it's more work for him to pitch in more with the kids or the housework. In fact, he's always been very hands on, so it's not anything out of the ordinary for him to clean the kitchen or pick up around the house. I think it's because our roles have changed, and it's made him increasingly uncomfortable as my paycheck has grown.

Sometimes I feel that he thinks I will leave him if I pursue any kind of career or social life outside of our home and relationship. Maybe this is a common male insecurity, but it's certainly taken me off guard. I see pursuing a career as helping the family, and I see having friends outside of the household as maintaining self-fulfillment, balance and sanity. He probably feels I am purposely distancing myself from him, when what I am really trying to do is not to lose my identity.

I need to pursue a career, have friends I can lean on, and interests outside of these walls; otherwise, I will forget who I am. This is what happened during my first 5 years as a mother, leading to struggles with depression and self-esteem, and I don't ever want that to happen again. I wish I could make him understand that.

On the up side, my boss has hired some people to take some of my work on, and it will hopefully start getting easier over the next 6 months. I just hope that we can make it that long.