Practicing Ahimsa. Badly.

“In the presence of one firmly established in non-violence, all hostilities cease.” 

– The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Sutra II.35

Ahimsa is the first of the Yamas, the yogic discipline of compassion and non-violence, the tenet which calls for us to cause no harm to ourselves or other beings and challenges us to dwell in the absence of pain.  I am afraid I am having trouble with that today.  Today I am in need of grace, as I my feelings are less than pure toward all of you parents who received your childrens' grade cards this week and then posted to Facebook about how many A's your kid got.  

And if the me 10 years ago heard the me today saying that I am made angry, jealous, and sad by your joy, I would really consider myself a complete jerkwad.  An anti-intellectual.  A giant bunch of sour grapes.

See, I was that kid, the "A" kid, when I was in school.  Things came pretty easily for me.  I conformed to rules as expected.  I had minimal emotional outbursts.  I did my homework, I studied for tests, and I loved to read.  I liked to please my teachers.  I raised my hand to answer lots of questions and I rarely ever missed school.  I was a parent's dream.

So I find it really, really hard to understand my autistic child.  I find it hard to understand why he finds school so emotionally tumultuous.  I don't get it when he clams up with anxiety and refuses to act.  I am perplexed when he cannot make simple choices about assignments, nonplussed when he has a meltdown over having to write a couple of sentences, and exasperated when he refuses to do work that I know he is fully capable of doing.  And I am left angry, defeated, and damn near despondent when his report card comes home with the news that this quarter, because he basically sat in the corner of the classroom reading books and generally being avoidant, he has failed all but one subject.  Or rather, his progress was "insufficient"--so he got all "I's," not "F's."  Whew!  That makes me feel better.  

Let me come clean and tell you what the devil on my shoulder wants me to think when I see you post that little Janie got all A's, or little Dickie is at the top of his class.  The little devil wants me to be rude and disparaging, and say that my kid is probably twice as smart as your kid, because my kid can break down words into their Latin roots and problem solve to understand new vocabulary, such as today when he figured out that a geosynchronous satellite will always stay over London, no matter what time of day it is, because it travels in time with (synch) with the earth (geo).  It wants me to say that my kid has a notebook full of inventions he wants to create someday, and that his heroes are Einstein and Tesla, and that he knows that starfish have thousands of tiny feet and that the peregrine falcon is the fastest animal on the planet, diving at up to 260 mph to catch prey, and that he will kick your butt in Minecraft knowledge any day of the week.

But the angel on my other shoulder knows that I should be celebrating with you, just as when my child has victories, I would want you to celebrate with me.  The angel tells me that someday, we will get beyond the need for headphones and sunglasses for sensory processing issues, he will learn to properly interpret social cues, he will learn to manage the anxiety that so often causes him to quit before he even begins, he will ride a bike without training wheels, and he might actually take, and finish, one of those stupid standardized tests so that the school district can have an accurate picture of his abilities for their stupid files.  And the fact that he doesn't do any of those things now isn't anyone else's fault, and it is wrong of me to take out my frustrations about it on other people and their children.  Their perfect children.  Children who get A's and win dance competitions and make home runs and take first place in spelling contests.  

And the angel tells me to be nice to myself, that I can't possibly do any more to help him than I am already doing, that it isn't my fault, and that I need to stop beating myself up over it.  I need to start practicing ahimsa--not just toward you, but toward myself.  

So please forgive me when I don't "like" your status update.  It's not that I don't like your child's successes.  It's that I can't stop seeing your child's successes as failures in my own.   

Where the Money Goes

We have a neighbor who keeps criticizing the condition of my house.  Among his observations:  We need new windows.  The porch steps aren't being repaired quickly enough.  We need to paint the exterior.  But on second thought, we should just get vinyl siding.  Etc. Etc. Etc.

I suppose that if we were amazing and old like him, and we had grown up in a time when people made a living wage and their unions made sure that their employers paid for their health insurance, and only one member of the household had to hold a job, and a college degree was a luxury and those who were working on one could work a summer job to pay for the next year's tuition, and people still had money to save at the end of the month, perhaps we'd have been able to plan better and we'd have the money to get a grand paint job and hire someone to finish the porch at lightning speed and put in some shiny, clean, energy saving new windows.  But we grew up with Reagan and Bush--both of the Bushes--so never mind all that.

I guess I just don't manage my money well enough, eh?

I am terrible at managing my money.  Let me come clean and horrify you with the breakdown.

I take my kids to science classes at the Great Lakes Science Center and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History so that they can learn the constellations, dissect starfish, watch giant Omnimax films about wild animals, and put together jars of water and clay and stones to see how the earth settles into sedimentary layers.

I get pool passes and swimming lessons so that we can spend all damn day at the pool getting good doses of exercise, vitamin D, and books.

I buy ballet shoes and send my daughter off to dance her little heart out.

I buy baseball mitts and watch my son run bases all summer.

I let my daughter get pink streaks dyed into her hair so that someday when she wants to do something her parents would consider rebellious, she will have to just go to mass or something lame like that.

I expedite shipping on my daughter's outgrown shoes, as well as the hair barrettes she has grown too old for, so that my cousin's little girl can enjoy them, too.

I pay extra for fresh, organic food so that my family will be healthy and will not go hungry.

I tip more than 20% to servers because they make less than $3 an hour.

I take the kids to ride roller coasters at Cedar Point.

I buy apps like Oregon Trail for the iPad.

I take friends to yoga.

I buy books.

I throw birthday parties.

I take my children to see The Hobbit in the theater.  And I let them buy expensive popcorn because it is part of the experience.

I let the kids buy overpriced hot dogs at Indians games.

I send the cub scout to day camp.

I buy plants and seeds and mulch and humus so that I can grow beautiful and tasty things, then share them with  the people I love.

I let the kids get Icees when we go to Target.

I get the grande soy latte at Starbucks, because dammit, I deserve it.

I pay a majority of the bills so that my husband can get the education he was meant to get.

And I go to yoga so that I can (more) gracefully cope with people like my neighbor.  And I bought a top notch mat, too--because I'm serious about this shit.  

So I am sorry that the paint is peeling on my house, and that the muffler on my car is loud, and that the porch is an abomination against your senses.  It must be awful to have to live near that, to see and hear it every day.  But in the meantime, I'll be enjoying some Zen with my kids at the pool.

This is my daughter, wasting money on water so she can run through the sprinkler.  We could have spent that money on paint.