Mid-Life Joyousness

Have you ever read the book, or seen the movie, The Razor’s Edge?  In the beginning, the main character is living in a small town and has never really known anything else.  He has a group of close friends in this town, is engaged to be married to his sweetheart in this town, and has a safe, secure plan for his future in this town.  Before he can get married, however, he first has to fulfill his commitment to the military. 

He has to go off to war for a little while.  And, before he goes, when he talks about this, he almost treats it as though it’s a bit of a nuisance, or a minor inconvenience, to his plan.  He intends to return home afterwards, get married, and take a job with the company that’s owned by his fiancé’s family.  Then he and his wife will buy a house, have some kids, and barbeque on Saturday afternoons with all of their friends.  It’s a lovely plan.

We’re actually introduced to this character (if I remember right) just after he returns home from the war, and during which everyone is trying to figure out what has happened to him.  And the reader gets to experience, to some extent anyway, through the main character, what it’s like to come back to the familiarity of home, changed.

I don’t know that a person can experience a total upheaval of everything that’s ever held still, of everything that’s ever made sense, and of everything that that person’s ever been, and come out the other side of it unchanged.  Sometimes one has to be destroyed, I think, in order to find out what kind of person might be left standing afterward.

Even though everything in this character’s home town is exactly the same when he gets back, things feel different to him because he’s not the same.  He spends a fair amount of time wandering around quite dazed by this too.  And he eventually begins trying to remedy the situation by seeking spiritual inspiration in books.

His friends and fiancé give him a period of time in which to read his little books and “recover” from his war experience, but then they expect him to “snap out of it” and return to his original plan.  He can’t seem to explain to them, either, even though he tries, that he’s actually changed somehow.  And as he experiences all of this, he slowly comes to realize, much to everyone else’s distress, that his original plan is no longer going to work for him.  He ends up leaving his fiancé behind, leaving his whole life behind in fact, and heading out on a journey of discovery.

When we first moved back to my home town in Montana after being in Arizona for five years, my uncle asked me how I felt about being home again.  “I don’t know,” I answered, “But I think I feel a little bit like that guy in The Razor’s Edge.”

I’m not saying that living in Arizona was like being in a war.  It wasn’t.  I quite liked Arizona.  What happened to me, while I was living in Arizona, was that I had kids with Autism.  And I’m not saying that living with kids with Autism is like being in a war.  Well, maybe I am a little.  I mean, not being able to do the dishes, or brush your teeth, or leave the room for one second for any reason at all because your children might, at any moment, suddenly jump up, start screaming, and attempt to crack their own skulls on the hard, ceramic tile (my kids used to be head bangers, big time), probably isn’t as traumatic as being shot at every day.  But I’m really not sure what else to compare it to. 

I lived on red alert so much of the time for so long that my weekly trip to the grocery store, by myself, became the one and only thing that I looked forward to.  It was nothing less heavenly.  For a whole half an hour I wouldn’t have to listen to any screaming, or get hit the face, or have my hands crushed between someone’s head and the floor, or live with the knowledge that if I left the room for a moment, someone might die.  I’d wander around the grocery store, my brain snoozing happily on how various products are packaged, and feeling intensely grateful not to have to think about anything else for a little while. 

I loved those moments.  In fact, I grew to absolutely live for those moments.  And when I’d hear people complaining about the green beans not being on the right shelf, or about the clerk charging fifty cents too much for a loaf of bread, or about whatever else people tend to find wrong with living in paradise, I’d find myself genuinely amazed at the kinds of things that regular people get to fret over.  

My kids were head bangers for about two and a half years.  And one day, to my surprise, the head banging just stopped.  Well, actually, this took the implementation of a gluten/casein free diet for Isabel, and didn’t actually stop for Cale before the introduction of psychiatric medication.  But nobody ever cracked a skull.  The only permanent damage, in fact, is that Isabel has two discolored front teeth.  I asked the dentist, one time, what caused her two front teeth to become discolored, and he said, “Trauma.”

“Oh?” I asked.

“She probably hit her face on something at some point,” he answered.

“Yes,” I said, and I didn’t tell him just how many times she’s “hit her face on something.”

I also have one permanently swollen, arthritic knuckle (it got crushed between skulls and floors so many times that it eventually stopped bothering to try to heal).  But did I mention that nobody ever cracked a skull?  This is absolutely amazing.  In fact, I feel like an incredible mother because of it.  To this day, I have to concentrate on not rolling my eyes when I hear normal mothers talk about only feeling successful if their kids read for a certain number of minutes every day, or eat the occasional vegetable, or whatever.  I’m afraid that I still feel so successful, just that my kids survived the “head banging years,” that I regularly have to remind myself that my job isn’t done yet.

My kids still self-harm on occasion.  And I’m not entirely sure that that’s not just part of living with Autism.  Isabel still bumps her head on things sometimes when she’s upset, but she doesn’t do it very hard.  And Cale hits himself on the legs so hard, on a very regular basis, that it often leaves bruises.

I tell the kids’ psychiatrist about these things every time we see her (who tries to regulate these behaviors with medication), and I do my best to keep my kids from getting upset in the first place, thereby preventing them from harming themselves.  But I’m afraid that we’ve been living with these behaviors for so long now that I’ve given up hope of them ever stopping entirely.  I do, however, find immense gratitude in the fact that they’re no longer life-threatening.

During the “head banging years,” my husband and I couldn’t take our kids anywhere (for fear that somebody might make eye contact with our daughter and send her head straight into the concrete in a parking lot somewhere).  We also didn’t have help very often (his mom would babysit on occasion, but she only lived in Arizona during the winter months).  So, for sometimes months at a time, there really was no escape. 

There were no date nights.  There were no family bikes rides, or camping trips, or voyages to the ice cream shop for a change of scenery.  There was nothing what so ever besides our beige, tract house and our seemingly suicidal children – day after day, month after month, for two and a half years straight.  So, naturally, one of the things I got really into was day dreaming.

I used to dream, in between tantrums, about a cabin in the woods.  This cabin sat next to a river in the middle of a thick, mountain forest, so close to the trees that pine sap literally dripped right onto the roof.  And it was quiet.  Perfectly quiet, the only sound in the world being the low rush of the wind in the tree tops, and the roar of the water in the river going by.  I used to hang out there a lot, in my head.  And to this day, when I meditate, it’s still my favorite place to go.

Until recently, I’d never told my husband about this.  I think this is because it’s kind of an odd dream for me.  I mean, I’m one that loves art and architecture and hundred year old houses with moldings up to my armpits.  I’d rather look at Greek columns than stacked logs any old day of the week, yet when I’m in need of some sort of renewal, I find myself longing for pine trees.  Why is this? 

I think it requires going back a little further, that’s all.  My parents took my brother and me into the mountains constantly when we were growing up.  And my grandma had a cabin on her ranch at the edge of a forest that I had my very own little room in (well, that I claimed as my own anyway) – stacked log walls and all.  Those years were the best years.  And I’ve always secretly wished that my kids could have this kind of an experience too.  It’s a love that I developed long before the days of art and architecture and hundred year old houses.  It’s a raw, childhood love of the mountains.

I’m thirty eight years old now and my doctor has just recommended a hysterectomy.  Oh, I’ve got some medical issues – nothing to worry about.  And it’s not that I mind.  I’m so done having babies.  My plan was to have a hundred of them.  I would’ve done so too, if I’d made them normal.  But I don’t, so I don’t mind that it’ll no longer even be an option to have any more, ever again.  No more at all.  Not even one more.  Ever.  Ever.  Ever again.  Ever.

I sat in the doctor’s office looking at all the pictures of all the pregnant bellies and, at first, felt really sad.  But then I thought, why should I feel sad?  My husband is amazing.  My kids are amazing.  My life is amazing.  It’s a new season for me, that’s all.

Shane’s mom says that her forties were the best years of her life, a time in which she really came into her own.  And that’s how I want to feel too.

I’d dearly love to have a mid-life crisis.  I’d like to go on journey like the guy in The Razor’s Edge, or on an Australian walk-about, or head to Italy for a couple of months of pasta sampling, as a means of self-discovery of course, like the author of Eat, Pray, Love.  I mean, you have to admire people that can muster the guts to leave it all behind and go off someplace alone to make peace with God.  But just as deserving of admiration, in my opinion, are the people that choose to stay in their lives.

I could never leave.  I joke sometimes that I would leave my children if my husband would come with me, but that he would never leave them:)  The truth, however, is that I could never do without my children either.  My “journey of discovery” has been an internal deal so far, instead of an external one, which works just as well I might add.  An amazing thing has just happened however.

We’ve closed on our last house.  And while we were lying in bed one night, talking about whether or not to buy the one hundred and five year old house that we’re currently living in – the one with the arm pit height molding, the one in the historic neighborhood that I’ve quite literally spent my entire adult life trying to end up in, the one that fits so very perfectly into my original plan – my husband said to me, “Take ALL of the limits off your thinking and listen only with your heart.”

“Only with my heart?” I looked at him.

“Yes,” he answered, “Only with your heart.  Then tell me where you want to live.”

I had to think about it really, really hard for about half a second.  

“I’d live in the mountains somewhere,” I said.

Once the idea was in my head, I could not seem to shake it.  I eventually started praying about it.  I also started researching the public schools, and how they might be for kids with Autism in particular, in every town in Montana that has mountains (Red Lodge, Bozeman, Kalispell, etc.).  And, just the day before we took a trip to Missoula to visit some friends of ours, I reluctantly researched the Missoula County Public Schools (MCPS). 

I was never going to consider Missoula.  The reason?  It was because these friends of ours, who happen to be two of our oldest friends, moved to Missoula a couple of years ago.  But that’s not the offensive part.  The offensive part is that we were in Arizona for five years.  FIVE YEARS.  And they stayed here the entire time.  Then, the moment they found out we were moving back here, they moved there.

Is that sighing I hear?  Hey!  What do you mean the whole world doesn’t revolve around me?:)  

Okay.  Sure, they tried to talk us into moving to Missoula from Arizona instead of back here.  And sure, they’ve mentioned the fact that they’d like us to move to Missoula every time we’ve seen or talked to them for the past two years.  And sure, they make it tons of fun whenever we go visit.  They have all of their gorgeous friends over and make us feel so welcome and a part of.  And sure we miss them.  We’ve been away from them for far too long.  But still.  I was NOT going to give them the satisfaction (imagine me with my arms folded and my nose in the air – hmmph).  I clearly needed a diaper to go along with this attitude.

My research revealed that MCPS employs an Autism specialist (and I later found that they actually employ two).  I made an appointment with this Autism specialist, which we attended the moment we got to Missoula for our visit, and, to make a long story short, we were markedly impressed with the kinds of things going on in Missoula for kids with Autism.

I also made an appointment to look at a house while we were there – ONE house (I didn’t want to spend the entire weekend with our friends looking at houses, even though they jumped online the moment we told them we were considering moving there, and said, “Let’s find you a house!!”). 

On the way up to Missoula the day before, I had told Shane about my cabin in the woods dream.  He was surprised by it, to say the least.  Then I’d talked for a long time about how it wouldn’t be possible to live in a cabin in the woods with three kids to feed because they don’t put Costco stores in the middle of the woods.  He’d listened intently, not agreeing or disagreeing in any way.

This house is a little ways up a mountain valley, is actually in a neighborhood, and is located about ten minutes away from a Costco.  But it’s turned out to be a four bedroom, two bathroom, cabin in the woods – complete with stacked log walls, massive stone wood burning fireplaces (grandfathered in to be able host real fires), and one pine tree in particular that’s so close to the house that it undoubtedly drips pine sap onto the roof.  The place is so real, live cabin-in-the-woods-esk that it’s a tad kitschy even for my taste, but when I stepped outside onto the deck, guess what I heard (besides the low rush of the wind in the tree tops)? 

“Is that water?” I asked the lady showing us the property.

“Yes,” she said, “There’s a river over there (not close enough that I’d worry about Cale getting into it though).  It’s nice to be able to open all the windows in the mornings and listen to the water rushing by.”

That very same week, my mom got a job in a town near Missoula.  My mom hasn’t lived near her grandkids in several years now, and is incredibly happy to get to do so again.

My heart seems to have spoken.  We’re moving into that cabin next week (we’re just renting it, as it’s not for sale).  And notice that I said “my” heart.  Shane says that he got his turn when we moved to Arizona, but that it’s my turn now.  And I’m taking it.

I have no idea what’s going to come of this (other than the fact that we won’t be sinking all of our money into a hundred and five year old house that needs a hell of a lot more work than it first appeared to).  And I don’t really have any expectations of it, although I do have to wonder if there’s a reason for it.  Maybe it is about discovery.  You know?  Maybe it has something to do with my writing.  Or maybe I’ll be able to paint again (there’s a big, unfinished basement that’s perfect for a studio).  Maybe there’s something in particular to be learned from it.  Or maybe it’ll just be fun.

My favorite scene in The Razor’s Edge is when the Tibetan monk sends our character, along with all of his books, to the top of a mountain in the winter time.  As he’s sitting there, quite literally freezing to death in a blizzard and wondering why the monk would send him to die alone on the top of a mountain, he suddenly realizes that he has to burn his books in order to stay warm.  And he smiles.