A Change Would Do You Good

There has been much written on the subject of change.  For the most part there is a general consensus that change is good, though not always easy.  I think for the most part we are creatures of habit, very easily getting stuck in a rut.  Something I have always found interesting, is that I drive the same way to work everyday, and the same way home everyday, but I use a different route for going to work, then I use for coming home from work.  There is no doubt that the coolest job I ever had, was working for Toad The Wet Sprocket as a roadie, specifically being Todd’s roadie.  He was always so open to trying new things, and even if we didn’t stick with it, he always gave it a real try.  I was always so grateful for the opportunity to be creative in my job, and have the ability to affect change.

Holden’s OCD tendencies make it difficult for him to deal with change.  The more I can prepare him for things, the better they go, but even when prepared, it can affect him badly.  We are going through a major change right now.  We are relocating to my home town, and I have been spending the last month packing things.  We have been in our home for 10 years, so there is a lot of accumulated, well frankly, crap.  So, between packing, and throwing things away, the house is a different place almost everyday.  Holden is so aware of details, and notices everything.  Everyday, he comes home, and has to deal with more things in his environment changed.  All in all, he has been doing such a great job with it all, but the other day he had a pretty major melt down.  I have been anticipating this for a while.  To give an example of how attentive he is, and what it can lead to, we once made this crayola putty painting, and after time the frame broke.  I didn’t think much of it and threw it away, but Holden totally noticed it missing, and tried to dig it our of the trash and put it back on the wall.  After it fell, the hardened putty broke out in several places, so he wanted to tape the putty back in place, then tape it to the wall.  It was a bit of a battle to get him to accept that it was not going back on the wall.  So you can imagine how it is for him to come home and find all the guitars no longer hanging from the wall, all the prints gone form the walls, books and book shelves gone, counters empty, and boxes everywhere.  The other day he decided he wanted to pack his own box of things, and I highly encouraged this.  Until he decided to unpack his box, then got the idea to unpack my boxes too.  

I have been trying to prepare him for this move for quite a while.  Every opportunity I get I tell him about it, where we are going, and when.  I am not really sure how much he understands though.  Every time we have visited in the past, he has always enjoyed it.  There is so much more of the things we all enjoy doing there, and with time he will love it.  It’s just the process of getting there, and all the change that is going on, that I am sure is driving him crazy.  So when he melted down a few days ago, I was especially patient with him.  When he has a melt down, I am always very firm with him, that he is still not going to get what he wants, so there is no point in his melting down.  I tend to be especially strict when he screams, and tell him that screaming will get him nothing.  However on this occasion I didn’t really try to stop him, or redirect him, I let him go off for a little bit.  I was very calm, and spoke very softly to him.  Zane was a little put off by this, cause he knows that my zero tolerance method usually works very well, and asked me why I was staying so calm through such a bad melt down.  I explained to him, that his brother was reacting to all the changes going on around him, and that this was the culmination of many days of frustration, finally being expressed.  Zane, ever the compassionate big brother simple said, “Well that’s stupid.”  After his melt down, which was because he couldn’t get all the straps of a back pack to buckle around him, was over, he came over and wanted me to hold him for a bit.  I love every second I get to hold him, and was happy to oblige, then I got out a different back pack that does buckle in two places and he was all smiles again.  I probably could have redirected him to this back pack right away, but I really felt like he needed that release.  Holden can’t talk about his feelings, he can’t write in a journal, he can’t play the guitar, so sometimes he needs a way to get out that pent up anxiety from the things in his life.  Certainly dealing with an ever changing environment will cause him some pent up anxiety.  So I indulged in his melt down, and by not redirecting it, kind of encouraged it.  If it was Zane that was being bothered by the move, I would ask him what it was that was bugging him, and get him to talk about it.  Get him to express his feelings about the situation, and help him come to terms with it.  At this point, that is virtually impossible with Holden.

Change is good, and this change feels so very right to me.  I am confident this is the right choice for so many reasons, and the boys and I will benefit from it in so many ways.  That doesn’t mean there may not be some bad days along the way.  There is nothing fun about moving, packing, or cleaning, but the end justifies the means.  When this is all over, and we are all settled in our new environment, I may allow myself a major melt down, but I will probably just splurge and buy a pizza instead.

Magnum Opus

An interesting thing has transpired in my life.  As things seemingly got worse and worse in my life, I have became more and more positive.  The thing is, I never really realized it, other people have pointed it out to me.  The past ten years have not been perfect, by any means.  My son was diagnosed with Autism and A.D.H.D., my wife left me, my mom who has Parkinson's, had to fight ovarian cancer, my job that is entirely commission based had already suffered a 30% drop in numbers due to the economy, then cut my pay a further 20%,  and I had to quit touring.  Here is the irony, I think any one or two of these things would have probably sent me into such a deep depression, that I may never have come out of it, however, having them all happen, has left me with a sense that I can survive almost anything.  That I was able to put aside my own wants and needs even further then I already had, and do what is best for my kids, has made me a truly happy person.  That is not to say that there are not days that I get down about things.  Especially when it comes to Zane, and not being able to give him the life I want to.  Then he says “I love you dad” and he doesn’t just say it once a week, or once a day, he says it all the time, every day.  Then there is Holden, who seeks comfort in me when he is upset, when he is sick, when he is hurt.  To hear him say “Daddy. . .” followed by anything, is more heart warming then anything I can think of.  Being able to take care of these two boys, especially Holden, has made me more patient, strong emotionally, and much more mature.  They have helped me find a balance in life, and not spend all my time worrying about what I don’t have.  This wasn’t something I understood, it was people who knew me, and knew what I was going through, and yet saw me smiling, and laughing, that told me things had changed.  They were right, I never smiled and laughed.  I am still a dark person, but not like I had been my whole life, now I am dark, because I love the beauty in dark things.  Mozart’s Requiem Mass is a dark piece of music, but it is also absolutely beautiful.  Samuel Barber’s Adagio for strings is also very dark, but every single time I hear it, it brings tears to my eyes with it’s sad beauty.  Bands like Alice in Chains, Nirvana, Death Cab For Cutie, and Radiohead have very dark music too, but it is also all so very beautiful.

The thing is, without embracing the dark, how can we really understand the light.  Without diving into the depths of our darkest corners of our soul, how can we appreciate the golden bright parts of it.  I am happy now, not because I sought happiness, I am happy now, because I faced my darkest hour, and resolved myself to accept it, and allow myself to see the light that still shined even in that darkest of hours.  Just like Mozart’s Requiem, that takes us to our darkest hour, but shows us how beautiful, yes sad, but still beautiful that even death can be.  It is so that our lives are one big Requiem, our life long Mass for the dead, that can be sad, and dark, and beautiful, and full of light and life.  I want to spend the rest of my days listening to Holden’s Requiem, and Zane’s Requiem, and those of my dear friends that are so important to my life.  I want to hear the beautiful, dark, sad, and uplifting music that emanates from all of them.  My three friends in the Bay Area, you know who you are! My two friends here in San Diego county, and even one in the desert, who probably doesn’t believe I am speaking of her.  This is the music that moves my soul, each so different from each other, yet each so beautiful in it’s own way.  

To me, Holden and Zane are my Magnus Opus, they are the music that has taught me how to be happy, perhaps for the first time in my life.  They are the music that has shown me the light, and after so many years of being in the dark, I can fully appreciate the beauty from their light.  They are the ones that bring a smile to my face, that everyone else has begun to take note of.  They are the ones that have laughter dancing on my lips, for no particular reason.  They are the ones that shine so bright, that even on the darkest days, I can see their light radiating.  Yes the last ten years have not been perfect, but they have made me realize something I always knew about people, but didn’t know it applied to life as well.  I have always known, and appreciated that it is our imperfections that make us unique and beautiful, but now I know that it is life’s imperfections that make life beautiful.  That a perfect life, like a perfect person, doesn’t exist, and lacks depth and beauty.  So to all of those who see me smile and laugh, and don’t understand how I can feel that way, as I live through all these “tough times”, don’t know a secret I know, my imperfect life is beautiful, BECAUSE it is imperfect.  That Holden and Zane are beautiful, because they are imperfect.  That the music I hear in them, and my close friends, is so beautiful, because it is imperfect.  Most of all, I appreciate the dark,  just as much as I do the light, because true happiness comes from the balance of accepting that there is no light, without darkness!

The past is history, the futures a mystery, and today is a gift, that's why we call it the present!

Survival of the fittest has long been a misunderstood element of Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection.  For a lot of people, survival of the fittest brings up visions of a bunch of super model looking women, and jock type guys, on treadmills in the local gym.  In reality what Darwin’s theory was stating, was that those that best fit in their environment, would be the ones to thrive and prosper.  Keeping in mind that that environment could shift at anytime, leading to a change in the natural selection.  The Peppered Moth being the quintessential example of this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution.  However, in the world of humanity, social Darwinism has, if not replaced, certainly changed the evolution of the human race.  This time the image of all the people on the treadmills is accurate.  Beauty is determined by the media, that uses make-up, touch-ups, and other tricks to create a beauty that doesn’t even naturally exist.  Add in “corrective” and plastic surgery, and you get an imagine of beauty that is completely manufactured.  I could discuss at great length, what I think of this new evolution of the human race, to homosapien synthetic, but that would be a greater tangent then I intended for this blog.  At this point, it is the concept of social Darwinism that I want my faithful readers to have in the forefront of their minds.

One of the most difficult aspects of parenting a child on the spectrum, is trying to be objective, especially when dealing with the school.  Going over Holden’s triennial assessments in a room full of specialists, and hearing them refer to Holden’s sever communication deficits, his impairing handicap of A.D.H.D. and his need for a behaviour plan, it is hard not to yell out that he is absolutely perfect just the way he is.  That would be counter productive, as my job as a parent and advocate for Holden, is to get him the services he needs to help him improve.  So we have to swallow back our parental pride in our wonderful children, that are truly perfect, and express those same deficits, and handicapping behaviours.  It’s even worse when we go back and read the very straight forward minutes from such meeting, where we read things like: Father expresses observation of same deficits and behaviours at home.  As I am reading the report, I can’t help but think what a jerk that father is.  At the same time, I know that father, me, is trying to put aside his monumental love for a child that is absolutely beautiful, intelligent and perfect just the way he is, for the sake of helping him fit into a society that doesn’t happen to fit him.  

In many ways, as I have previously expressed, Holden’s disability has made him more human, than many of his un-handicapped fellow human beings.  I find it hard to want to be a part of a  society that finds humour in the pain and suffering of others, as exemplified in the popularity of the “Jackass” series of movies.  As a society we find the subject of “Roasting” Charlie Sheen, to be worthy of discussion for several days, mean while our schools are working with budgets so stretched, that a fly landing on it would snap it, yet that has become the status quo.  We are a society that promotes escapism through happy hour drink specials, reality TV,  and a $.99 menu.  Like the ancient Roman times, we are all under the trance of bread and circus, while our society spins off axis into a different realm.  I could go on, and on, and on, but I think we all get the picture.

So now I am trying to help give Holden the tools to “fit” into this society, that he so unfortunately does not fit in, and a part of me thinks I am doing him a great injustice.  Of course we all have to function within the parameters of the society we live in.  If we are some of the lucky few, we find a niche that we fit in really well, and can be ourselves with those around us.  The difference though, between Holden and Zane, is that I can express to Zane that he needs to decide whether he wants to live in the society as a member of it, participating in it’s ever flowing insanity, or live on the fringe of it, as an outsider that works within the system.  Where as with Holden, I am actively trying to help him fit into the very society that I prefer to live on the fringes of.  I would never tell Zane what to do with his life, but if he asked me, I would certainly promote living on the fringe.  Yet here I am, trying to help Holden fit into his society.  In reality, Holden may have no choice but to live on the fringe, and work within the norms of a society that he doesn’t completely understand.  In fact that is what we are really working towards for him, and anything that happens beyond that is icing on the cake.  

Perhaps someday social Darwinism will make a big shift again, and like the Peppered Moth, it will go from one extreme to another, and back again.  Perhaps as we push for a cleaner planet through conservation, we can work on a little moral conservation as well.  Find beauty in the attributes of a person, beyond physical beauty, but in integrity, intelligence, empathy, and compassion.  perhaps our moral conservation can teach the importance of emotional intelligence and maturity, while living in reality, and in the present.  In that society, Holden already fits much better.

(I have to explain the bottom picture.  Zane loves to read under a desk, in his little dark corner.  It scares me how much he reminds me of myself.)