{"id":18412,"date":"2021-07-28T08:34:03","date_gmt":"2021-07-28T12:34:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=18412"},"modified":"2021-07-28T08:34:03","modified_gmt":"2021-07-28T12:34:03","slug":"letting-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2021\/07\/letting-go\/","title":{"rendered":"Letting Go"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"<\/p>\n

Dear Justin,<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This past week I took you to the Point Pleasant boardwalk with a friend, hoping we\u2019d harken back to times of \u201cyore\u201d when everything went smoothly and we both enjoyed ourselves. You see, my son, our last few trips there have been quite stressful, and despite using my \u201cbag of tricks\u201d with you I\u2019m not comfortable taking you there alone anymore. There are just certain attractions that your aging mother can no longer tolerate, but sometimes there is no reasoning with you and your implacable will. When you want something, you want it.<\/p>\n

And all the social stories in the world aren\u2019t going to change that.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

We\u2019d had two bad experiences there recently but I was hoping the third time would be the charm, plus your mom is ridiculously stubborn. I am loathe to give up a pastime that we\u2019ve been able to do just the two of us for fifteen years, and I was hoping your behavior was just a blip on the radar, nothing permanent.<\/p>\n

I quickly found out that despite my own implacable will to get you out in the community, you had other ideas my son.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

I had help with me so it wasn\u2019t that difficult to get you back to the car when things went south, yet I was still left sweating and filled with regret. This used to be one of our easy trips, occasions where if I said \u201cno\u201d to a ride you\u2019d listen without complaint; you were just happy to be out of our house.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve noticed since we\u2019ve been going out into the world post- Covid you are asserting your wants more now, and I understand. We had fifteen months of pretty much being in lockdown chez McCafferty, and there are things you want to do, things you want to see. I get it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The only problem is, you can\u2019t have your way every single time.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been in this situation before. I remember taking you and your brother on the Great Adventure safari years ago, and listening to your low-grade whine throughout the ride in our car. I recall that for perhaps the first time I wasn\u2019t kvetching that you were annoyed. You were safe, hydrated, and inconvenienced for an hour so your brother could do something he loved. For once, I wasn\u2019t upset that you were unhappy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

I remember feeling liberated.<\/p>\n

Now you are bigger than me- taller, and you outweigh me by a few pounds (if I haven\u2019t had too much ice cream recently). I can no longer negotiate or block you from your chosen path by myself. I simply don\u2019t have the strength.<\/p>\n

But I do have the strength to learn to let go.<\/p>\n

The truth is, it is no longer feasible to take you back there alone. There may be more trips in the future with our family friend and perhaps the BCBAs from your school when that program starts up again. I\u2019m not ruling out the boardwalk entirely.<\/p>\n

I am, however, letting it go for just the two of us. I\u2019m acknowledging that now that you\u2019re older I may be letting go of other things too.<\/p>\n

And letting go is okay.<\/p>\n

I will always help you live your best life. The landscape of that life will change, and I need to be on board with that.<\/p>\n

I am trying.<\/p>\n

I love you, my boy.<\/p>\n

For more on my family visit my blog at autismmommytherapist.wordpress.com<\/em><\/p>\n

Follow me on Facebook at Autism Mommy-Therapist<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Justin, This past week I took you to the Point Pleasant boardwalk with a friend, hoping we\u2019d harken back to times of \u201cyore\u201d when everything went smoothly and we both enjoyed ourselves. You see, my son, our last few trips there have been quite stressful, and despite using my \u201cbag of tricks\u201d with you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,12],"tags":[293,295,294],"class_list":["post-18412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-in-brick","category-ocean-county","tag-autism","tag-autism-acceptance","tag-autism-awareness"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-4MY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18412\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}