Real Education

“When the student is ready, the master appears." ~ Buddhist Proverb

I have learned much about who I am and what I am capable of through education. It seems that we as a society have moved to a place where education, especially higher education, is something to be gotten over with, a means to an end, instead of a journey and an experience in its own right. For me, when the time came to continue my education, I was doing it to please others, but by the time I finished, I was doing it to please me.

From start to finish, I have been under the instruction of over six dozen teachers. Most of which were burnt out school-marmish women who had long since tired of their professions and were holding out for retirement. This was not the reflection of a certain particular school or area, by my high school graduation I had attended eight different schools in four different school districts and with each move it became easier to just slip through the cracks and give a minimal performance.

Early on, teachers seemed to be aware of my potential. I was given various tests and provided with outside resources meant for gifted children and that was all fun until I was booted out of the program in middle school. After that it became comfortable being able to exert little to no effort and make a minimally passing grade.

I left the mandatory public education system lost. I didn't know who I was or where my life was going. I had managed to leave school without having any friends or any form of network to rely on. Which left me very much alone.

Four years after leaving high school, I entered college. On paper it doesn't sound like a great length of time, but in reality, I was being sized up against my peers from high school who were at the same time graduating with their bachelor degrees. I was, according to my mother, behind the game and needed to put in the extra effort to catch back up. I started with all of the normal classes and continued my tradition of just doing enough to get by and most of the time it seemed to work. I also continued with making as little contact with everyone else as possible.

It was at this point in my education I began to learn about myself. I began to discover who I really was and how unhappy I had been.

Danish

I come from a large extended family. Each generation before mine had a half dozen kids or more and shared a similarity in heritage. I am both fourth and fifth generation Danish-American which doesn't sound like much really, but to me it's something. From Denmark, each family settled in Wisconsin and Minnesota which is still predominantly Danish. I have been there once or twice and it seems so natural to be in these areas where I blend in and people share a certain culture even if they don't understand why.

On Her Birthday

It's my mother's birthday today. I know because she texted me earlier reminding me. I'm not a horrible daughter, I did send a card as I do every year, mailed it with my brother's two weeks ago.

I saw a picture of her recently, in the new church directory and realized that it's the first time there has been a formal picture taken of her with no kids in very nearly 25 years. The two boys were off at work or doing whatever it is they do and S and I were in our own picture on another page. At first I totally missed the picture. I had to go back through and search for it. It seemed a bit odd like that, just the two of them.

And then it began to sink in that maybe she noticed too and just maybe this is some of the problem recently. In a couple months time I will turn 25 and 4 months after that I'll be married. It's a bit scary to think about.

Then reality hits...

I got a call today after school from my mother, which was a bit weird because I knew she was at work, and at first felt it was a bit of an intrusion because I was studying and enjoying the nice weather. At first she wondered why I was still at school if my classes were over for the day and seemed a bit upset that I wasn't home where I could talk but eventually she got around to the reason for her call.
Last year my (step)dad spent nearly ten months over in both Iraq and Afghanistan. This wasn't his first deployment over there, but the last one was in the 80s and he did suffer minor PTSD after that. Apparently he is having a very hard time this time around and it's affecting his job among other things, but he doesn't think he needs help. She apparently has contacted the VA to get him the help she thinks he needs, but I hate to tell her that it's only any good if he's receptive to it. She said something about because she's been through major depression (and is apparently the only one who has that matters), she knows it'll help him, I just hate to tell her that as someone who had that forced upon them, it may only push him away.
I don't think there's enough of me left to deal with more 'stuff' from everyone else. Some part of me feels that this is just one more thing that will separate me from everyone else. I know that must be pretty selfish of me to say, but I'm feeling a bit selfish right now. I spend so much time helping everyone else with homework, transportation, work, life, etc that I just need some time to myself. The last day I had to myself was at the beginning of the year, and even then it wasn't really on my own.

I Digress

I had a very long conversation the other day about this book, or the idea of it. What I hoped to get out of it, how I thought I would accomplish my goals, why I picked the title I did. It took a while but I think I've started to figure out why writing it has become so important. It is both an explination of who I am and why I've become that person.
I think each part of my life set me up to be able to make it through the next part. If I'd had nothing but pleasant experiences, then finding myself alone in Florida would have been much more traumatic. However, by the time I made it here, it was more or less a non-event.
Down the road, I hope this story is about the trip. That decade in my teen years that was truely the trip to the beginning of my life.
This discussion we had lasted most of the evening and eventually he asked, as he has before, if he is going to be mentioned in it. I explained that he is the ending, my knight, who closed that chapter of my life for good.

Then he asked if the next book would be about everything since.

A Stone's Throw

I first got an email from this family in early December, I remember because it was just before finals. They lived nearby and needed someone to watch two young kids in the afternoons and evenings 4-5 days a week. Again, the father was in the Navy, but stationed in Djibouti rather indefinately.

My first meeting with the family was right at the end of the semester, the mother was a student by day and worked full time at night while her sister, who lived with them, stayed home during the day and worked at the same place at night.

The children, both boys, were absolutely wonderful. Intelligent, cheerful, and sweet, the little one "Dan", only about 18 months old, took right to me and we were forever inseperable. The older one "Cris", about two and a half, did not warm up to me quite as quickly.

The first few weeks we spent just getting to know one another. Dan didn't talk, just smiles and action; Cris cried. Cris sat, up to eight hours at a time, under a blanket from his mother's bed and cried.

As I began to get him to interact, I began to notice that he wasn't like other kids his age, for one, he was very close to smarter than myself. (Okay, I'm not a genius, not quite anyway, but there should be more difference between an two year old and a twenty-two year old.) Cris also did not communicate normally. Most notable was this interaction; I would ask him, "Do you want juice?" His response was never yes or no, but "Do you want juice." as affermative or "No do you want juice." as dissent. Red flags went up in the back of my mind. I dug around on the internet, looking at medical texts and information from other parents, and sent off an email to someone I knew long ago and came to a startling conclusion. Cris was autistic.

It just so happened that about the time I came to this conclusion on my own, their grandparents happened to be visiting and I brought the topic of Cris up to the grandmother. She said, yes, he most likely was autistic and their other daughter (who works in a profession with such children) pointed it out long ago. She also said the parents were in denial and said if something was wrong the schools would catch it.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I couldn't believe my ears. By the time he made it to school, most likely it would be too late. If he was lucky enough that the school caught it the first couple years, he would get shoved into special ed, a place from which few students ever returned. So I returned to my books and journals and began devising a plan to help him get over this obsticle.

The first step was getting him to accept me. This actually turned out to be fairly difficult. I ignored him unless him came to me. I never looked directly at him and set about creating an ironclad routine that anyone who had him in their care could follow. Since he wasnt old enough to really tell time, I used the television. I programmed the TV each day to switch to each channel at the correct time and in no time at all the crying began to lessen. Shortly after that he would come sit with me to play or watch a show and he began to show that he really liked to help in the kitchen.

This routine became key to everything else we did. It became my way to get him potty trained and my way to actually get him to do other activities. The mother and aunt pointed out on different occasions, "The boys cry and run to the door when you leave."



One entire day got devoted to yes and no. We tried flashcards, word recognition, and a host of other things and by bedtime, he pretty much had it figured out.

Once we had basic communication down we starting disposing of bad habits. The list was simple enough if it had just been the mother and I; binkies, bottles, eating inthe livingroom, and diapers primarily, along with allowing Cris to echo speech instead of answer as he had learned. But the aunt had the children most of the time and liked having little fuss from them. So we got rid of everything. I pointed out that while they were with me, which was most of the day, these things were not done so it wouldn't be much of a transition.

By early summer we had it down pat. I arrived at 2 in the afternoon just as the kids were getting up from their naps and we had a couple hours of somewhat structured playtime. We would paint or use playdough, if it was warm we would play in the little pool out back. Four o'clock was our first target time, Reba was on at four for an hour. In that hour we cleaned up whatever we had been doing and went for a walk around the neighborhood. Walking took quite a bit of time and usually by the time we got back it was nearing 5.
At five o'clock Gilmore Girls came on and that was dinner preparation. Sometimes Cris would help me and sometimes he would play with his brother. Usually by half past they were at the table eating.
Six o'clock meant Reba was back on and we had more playtime or read books, slightly calmer activities than earlier in the day.
Seven was Still Standing and that was bath time. Bath time took a bit longer because Dan had a bath but Cris took a shower.
Eight o'clock was time for snuggling, watching the final round of Reba, and preparing for bed. After we settled, occasionally I would get on messanger and Cris with talk to my mom online.

Over time we bagan to venture further away from home. They liked to go visit my dog so we did that often, we would go to children's museums or just to a different environment. Much of what we did was to stimulate both boys, but especially Cris. He had aversions to certain sensations like sitting in water (like a tub or kiddie pool), walking barefoot through grass, or sitting on a swing. Finger paint and playdough gave him trouble at first as well. Because of his general aversion to water, I was very surprised the first time we took him swimming in a big pool and he didn't want to get out.
He formed a very unusual bond with my mother (whom he saw all of like twice ever) and liked to talk to her and visit with her if she was down.

Dan was just Dan, not very talkative, very much the observer. During the time I watched them he did finally begin to talk, but with an unexpected twist. Having listened to my fast way of talking, he spoke very fast.
Mid summer brought a traumatic event to the house, their aunt was hospitalized for MS, something she had been battling for a long time, and the household was thrown into turmoil. The first night the boys came and stayed at my house and as we drove away in the dark, Cris was in the backseat crying to himself "Mommy will come later" over and over again. It was a demonstration that some of the coping techniques we had been working on, he understood.
After a year of caring for them I pointed out that while I had helped the boys quite a bit they needed professional help, it was met with resistance. Finally I had to just end working for them because seeing those boys and knowing that without help, Cris wouldn't ever reach his full potential was tearing me apart.

Painting Pictures

Since I have gotten the basis of these events down, perhaps I need to go back and fill in some details. Paint some pictures. I'll start with some positive ones, some that I carry with me and pull up when needed.

The best book I have ever read is The Giver. It is a fairly remedial book for me, even when it was assigned in school the first time, but I like the idea behind it. I like the idea of being able to pull up memories to get you through a situation. Simple and a bit silly, I know, but I like simple and silly.

My mother can sew. Which makes me feel a bit less of a woman because for the most part I can't. She used to make some of my clothes; not just basic shirts, but dresses and other such things. Part of the reason, I learned later in life, was that because I was always so small, it was hard to find age-appropriate clothes that fit and when she could find clothes that nearly fit, they needed to be taken in in one place or another. The other reason was that store bought clothes were very expensive.

My mother also is full of life. Despite her own life, she has pulled through and become a very outgoing and active person. Some of my earliest memories with her are at the carnival when it came to town. We would ride the tilt-a-whirl. Just us, no one else in the car. She taught me how to sit in the very middle and lean one way or the other to get it spinning as fast as it would go. If it wasn't particularly busy, we would ride again and again trying to go faster each time.

After my transition to Florida and while I was working at Disney she came to visit and we rode the Teacups at Magic Kingdom. My Dad and Brit, having learned their lesson before, chose to ride in their own teacup while she and I worked in tandem to spin the cup as fast as we could.

She and I are, not surprisingly, very much alike despite our very different lives. I know she wants nothing but the best for me, but any less than a thousand miles between us makes that very hard to swallow. Now that we have begun to live our own lives, we do talk on a regular basis. My favorite new memory was last year standing to watch her run across the finish line of a half-marathon. Running is her new activity since I left.

My Dad, actually my Step-Dad, plays the referee quite often when the topic of school and wedding (something new) comes up. He believes college should be on my terms and no amount of force will get me to change what I want. Which would be okay if I knew what that was.

He loves his jobs, both of them. He works as an RN in the cardiac wing of their local hospital. A slight bit of irony in itself. He is passionate about helping people. He is also very passionate about his service in the military. He has always taken the stance that young kids should not be sent to war. He was chomping at the bit for a long time before they finally sent him overseas last year. He was stationed both in Afghanistan and Iraq and was gone for almost the entire year.

His son, my step-brother never lived with us and as we got older, came over less and less. Barley a year younger than me, he also has chosen to take some of the harder roads through life.

Bubby, who I've already introduced, is my favorite person. Sure, we fight and argue, but when it comes down to it, we have quite a bit in common. His view of life and the world is much different than mine. He has a much stronger connection to our hometown and the people in it, occasionally (so it seems) resigning himself to a fate of following in our biological father's footsteps. On the other hand, he knows me better than anyone else; which is not to say that he knows everything about me, because he doesn't. He can voice for anyone exactly how I would feel about something (and most likely with quite a bit more tact).

These people, these personalities make up my family. With other people coming and going from time to time, influencing or affecting us as they pass by.