🌩️ Holding space for failure

It’s March. I can’t believe it! Q1 almost done.

For me, because I have kids, this also means spring break is nearly upon us, and summer isn’t far off.

I’ve been working on getting summer camp set up for this summer since October of last year. No joke. In NYC, there is a line for EVERYTHING, and summer camp is no exception.

And with Leo, because he needs more supervision and special accommodations, it’s been even more of a journey.

There’s only one, ONE, summer camp that would accommodate him within anything that could be considered commutable distance.

And I got us in!

But I’m still worried.

Last year, he was in a special summer version of his pre-k program. It ended a couple weeks before summer ended so we had to put him into a couple weeks of a “regular” camp for that length of time.

They welcomed him with open arms initially…but about 4 days in, they sent him home and said he can’t come back. No grace period, no warning.

This isn’t the first time that’s happened in exactly that way. Initially things being okay. Then hearing nothing. Then he’s abruptly ejected.

Leo isn’t a bad kid. He’s a really, really good one.

But people run into stuff with his needs that they don’t understand (and that looks scary to them) and that is disruptive to how they need to run their program.

It could easily happen again.

It’s so, so hard to try again knowing that it could happen again.

The last time he got kicked out, I picked him up, got us home, made it to the entry way, and then I had to stop…and just lie down right there on the floor and cry for a while. I couldn’t get all the way to my bed.

(Alan brought me a blanket and read me a book.)

When Leo gets rejected, it rekindles all the rejection I’ve ever felt in my life...and then I feel it one more time on his behalf. And then I feel it a third time thinking about all the future rejection that might be waiting for him in life.

…Leo’s actually doing really well, despite how it sounds.

He has come LIGHT YEARS from where he was able to go just four years ago.

Four years ago, he couldn’t speak more than two words together.

Four years ago, his eloping was so bad that we had to lock him in his room at night so he wouldn’t wake up and wander out of the apartment while we were sleeping.

Four years ago, we had to take all the books and toys out of his room because he’d rip them up and throw them at the wall if we left him alone with them.

Four years ago, his autistic panic attacks were so constant that we couldn’t really do anything outside the house. Couldn’t go to restaurants. Couldn’t get through a doctor’s appointment without both of us holding him.

But now...it's actually hard to imagine ANY of that happening.

I could give in to my fear. I could pull him away from any and every situation that I believe he can’t handle or that he might get rejected from.

But then, he’d never get a chance to experience swimming lessons, field trips, sun-soaked play dates with new friends. He’d never get a chance to PRACTICE grappling with a new strange thing.

There are indescribable joys and opportunities for growth waiting just around the corner from my worst fears for him.

I've been called out to face my fears and hold space for Leo to experience new and wonderful things even when he might not yet be fully equipped with the right skills to handle the new thing.

I tell you this simply because...

Maybe you and I can hold such space for ourselves, too?

Space to learn. Space to f*ck it up.

Even when the experiment fails, something is gained. Growth is happening. Lie down on the floor and cry if we must, and then we go again.

Peace,

Cathy

P.S. Latest Save the Darlings progress here.