For the first time in over two years I am touring. It is just a short tour, 5 shows over the Memorial Day weekend. Still it is very significant. A year ago I didn't think this would ever be possible again. It took a few things to have transpired for it to be possible for me. The biggest one, is Zane and Holden’s mother moving back to California, and especially Santa Barbara. It would not have been possible for me to tour had she still lived out of state. Of course, having Toad still want me to tour with them was certainly a necessity. As I have stated on this blog before working for Toad was the best job I ever had, not because of the bright lights and big cities, but because I was appreciated, respected, and given a lot of freedom to be creative in my work. That means a lot to me, and most employees.
So as I was working my first show on the trip, it dawned on me that this job had help prepare me for being Holden’s father. There are a lot of stressful jobs in the world, a wall street broker, Bering Sea crab fishing, and many others. There are few jobs though, that require you to work in front of an audience. Back in the nineties it wasn’t unusual for us to do shows for over 20,000 people. When you headline a show for 20,000 people, and you have to do the changeover, after the opening band plays, you are working in front of 20,000 people. They are actively watching you, because they know that when you are done, they get to see what they paid good money to see, which was not me setting up gear. When something would fail on stage the whole show would come to a stop, while I tried to figure out what went wrong, and how best to fix it. To add to the stress, the person who’s gear failed is equally stressed because their gear isn’t working, and they are holding up the show. One would think that it’s the ability to not care what people think of you, that would make working such a job tolerable, but in actuality, for me it was being able to focus on the job completely. To become so immersed in what I was doing, that I didn’t even take in the fact that I was working in front of people.
As a parent, we have to be that focused on our children. As the parent of an autistic child, we have to be even more focused. It’s not that we learn to negate all the background “noise”, but rather that we bring our focus up on the foreground so much, that the rest becomes so background, it all but disappears. As a parent of a special needs child, we cannot allow our attention to drift at all. The stakes are just too high.
I don’t know if I am just naturally the type of person that can focus in on one thing, while still being aware of my surroundings, or if working as a roadie, developed those skills for me, but either way, it helped prepare me for what I never knew was coming. Now looking back on all that I have done in life, not much else could have better prepared me for the journey I would take in life, when Holden was born. So having the opportunity to do this job again, has really helped show me the light. I can now add that it taught me to be a better parent, to remain calm in bad situations, and to learn to deal with the situation at hand as best, and as efficiently as possible. To adapt to the ever changing stages, lights, temperatures, and cities that go along with tour, just like I need to adapt to the ever changing entity that is Holden.
Last but not least, two things have become very apparent to me on this tour: 1) I am not as young as I used to be. I was discussing this with one of the other crew guys, and as he so wisely pointed out, it’s the recovery time that gets elongated by age. 2) I miss my boys SOOOOOOO much!
There are these moments in life, where everything seems to shift. Sometimes they are gradual shifts, over time, and sometimes they are violent shifts that happen in a moment. Failed marriages are usually gradual shifts over time. Where things were fine in the beginning, than at some undefined moment in life, they started to not be fine. In the beginning it seems like all the problems are situational, and things will get better as the situations improve, but they never do. What starts as a few bad moments, in an otherwise fine relationship, becomes few good moments, in an otherwise bad relationship. Once the communication fails, it spirals out of control, like a jet in a flat spin. Violent shifts can be things like a death in the family, or a severe injury that leaves you paralyzed, or maybe something good like winning the lottery, or graduating college. For the most part life is full of varying forms of gradual and violent shifts. Often, there can be several gradual shifts that are unrelated, but result in a much bigger shift. Certainly these shifts can be positive or negative.
I became aware of a major shift in my life recently. I was talking to a former co-worker, and he was telling me about how bad of a month my old workplace had. I need to explain that I worked as a back counter parts tech at a Toyota Dealership. In that position we were paid 100% commision. You can imagine how the economy, and the scare that Toyota’s were defective and accelerated on their own (in fact, the NTSB cleared Toyota of every case, siting user error, derived from black box information. Yes, new cars have a black box, like an airplane, it’s built into the main engine computer) impacted our paychecks. On top of that, we all received pay cuts. So my ex-coworker was relating that they had just had one of the worst months since he started working there. The frustrating part about these months, is that we were so understaffed, that even on these horrible months, you quite often still worked your butt off. As I was empathizing with him, I realized just how fortunate I am to be out of that situation. I jokingly told him that he should move to Santa Barbara also, to which he replied, not all of us are able to up and move like I did, leave everything behind, and make it work. I expressed that I was indeed very fortunate. He then said “So no more unhappy Jonas?” to which I could only truthfully answer one answer, “Nope”.
The shift has been very gradual, and hard to notice, since it is a positive shift. I don’t know why we notice negative things so much easier than we notice positive, it should be the other way around, but I guess that is human nature. None the less, it has shifted, and “unhappy Jonas” is gone. I miss some of my friends, two in particular, a Koalaphant, and the other half of “Messenger”, but all in all life has gradually improved a lot. Certainly Holden hasn’t miraculously been cured of autism, and Zane hasn’t suddenly decided he loves school, and can’t wait to go everyday, but these are facts of life that I accept. Nothing in life is idyllic, that’s only in the movies. As is often the case, our perspective on events makes a huge difference too. We can choose to perceive everything in a positive or negative light. It is always easier to view things as positive, when life is positive. So as I empathize for my ex-coworker for the negative that he will have to endure, in a workplace that is at best hostile, I thank him for reminding me that there was an “Unhappy Jonas” and that he is all but a memory. For a few hours today I was about as giddy as I get, I blamed it on the Monster I had just drank, but I know the truth. The truth is I was thinking that I don’t miss “Unhappy Jonas” one bit, and I love being just Jonas again.
As today, Holden’s seventh birthday, comes to an end, I can’t help looking back at his last year. Normally I would write something about how much having Holden in my life has changed my life so much, and for the better. It is very true that Holden has changed my life so much, and I can not even express how much it has changed it for the better. However, I am going to put myself aside, for once, and reflect upon Holden’s year.
This year has been a year of great advancement for Holden, and tough changes. It has been a year of up and downs, and lots of new people in his life. It has been a year of increased family presence, in the form of his grandfather and step grandmother, his uncle, his grandmother, and most of all his mother. All these people had been in his life before, but now they are in his life as much as on a daily basis. They all make him so happy, and he loves having them more present in his life. He has a “one on one” aid at his school that he loves, and therapists who enjoy working with him, despite his occasionally challenging behaviours.
I am not going to dwell on the tough times this year for him, they are all well documented in the blogs that precede this one. So lets talk about some of his accomplishments. Holden participated in the Special Olympics School Games last week. He won a silver medal and two bronze medals. I have to say that the whole experience was great for him, and I loved watching him. I didn’t expect to be so affected by him marching in during the opening ceremonies, holding the banner for his school with three other kids. It was a very emotional moment for me.
Scholastically Holden has been doing so amazing. Everything has just been progressing so well, especially with his reading and writing. He continues to show great intelligence, creativity and artistic ability. Now he is also beginning to empathize with people. Understand their emotional states, and comment on them occasionally. This is such a huge step in his development. He is getting more inclusion time with kids in general first grade, and I believe this inclusion time with continue to grow, and hopefully some day replace his special day class.
Just earlier this week, Holden was playing with sidewalk chalk, and he wrote “Holden’s House” on the house. I was so happy to see him write that. Zane was born in Santa Barbara, and has always felt close ties to it, Holden was born in Escondido, and it was the only home he ever knew. He often asked for it, and still does, to a much lesser degree. For him to write Holden’s home on his new home in Santa Barbara was a really great step in his life. I believe he has really come to accept this as his home, not just the house, but the city as well. We now have our spots we like to go too, and he knows all the places he likes, when we are driving around. Holden has always loved the beach, and here he is so much closer to it.
As I watched Holden patiently wait for us all to sing him happy birthday, I truly got a sense of how far Holden has come. He knew the lyrics to the song, sang it with us, then blew out his candle. It seemed like such a simple and natural thing to observe, and yet I believe it was the first time Holden understood what it all meant, and why it was happening. It’s always hard to watch our children grow up, and need us less and less. It is a bittersweet part of being a parent. In Holden’s case it is an especially difficult thing to watch, because he was so dependent upon us. When we go for walks, and he doesn’t want to hold my hand anymore, and I can actually let him walk on his own. I can’t help feel a huge surge of pride in him, and a gaping hole in my soul open up. For Holden each milestone of independence he achieves, is another huge step in his war against his disability, a war that has no end, but now we see a lot more victorious battles, than losing ones.
note: this title is the Beatles “Birthday” song, just in case there was any confusion.
