It is possible, at least in my world, for time to speed up and slow down. Sometimes this seems to happen simultaneously. Time is not a constant. At least I can thank Albert Einstein for giving me the capability to believe that I am not crazy.
You see, this year is a bit of a momentous year in our family at multiple levels. First, our son, Ian, will be turning 21. That event will happen very soon, in fact. I guess I should feel good about it, because he asked me to take him out for his first beer. I will. There are some folks that I will take along as well, so we can celebrate his birthday. That celebration won’t be extravagant. We don’t really do things that way, and honestly, Ian does not either. I think for him it is one of those turning points in life. I am pleased that he wants his father to go with him.
I’m seeing more changes as well. Maturity continues to show up... Ian has moved himself into the computer science program at the Saint Johns River State College and is signed up for three classes, including Intro to Programming, Microcomputer Operating Systems, and Network Design. He is also researching and talking about a plan for his future once community college is finished. The long running joke about the University of Hawaii and beaches seems to have run its course. Instead, he is investigating places like Lenoir-Rhyne University in North Carolina, which has a long history of educating students who are deaf. This is important because it indicates a new level of maturity. Ian is considering his future far more seriously and honestly than he did even two years ago. His questions, actions, and decisions are far more mature. He is mapping his course to his promised land. He is also depending on us less and himself more. All these things are things my wife and I have wanted to see for a long time. We are happy.
But it also makes feel old. I sit here and wonder where the time went. How did it go by so fast? I have a hard time not seeing him at 3 using his hearing aids for a spoon to eat yogurt when he had dropped his real spoon. Or him in his posterior walker as a 5 year old (Ian has cerebral palsy - he has not needed the walker since he was 7, when he started walking independently) on the day at the zoo when they had a tiger cub about the size of a golden retriever out on a leash and he decided it would be fun to pet it. I remember looking at that tiger’s eyes and seeing them register, “CHEW TOY!!!” I remember the first of many days waiting at the bus stop, first in Virginia, and then here in St. Augustine. Now, I watch him get in his car and head off to classes or somewhere else. It makes me feel old. But it also makes us feel good.
All those hours my wife and I spent debating if we were making the right decisions. The recognition that sometimes we had made the wrong decision, the frustration of that recognition, and understanding the need to back up and make that second choice is still fresh in my mind. The long discussion about quitting our jobs and moving from Virginia to Florida to get him into Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind that, once decided, took on the look of one of the crusades, with applications, reconnaissance to find jobs and living space, and the discussions with two sets of grandparents that we were no longer going to be living close by.
As many of you know, it is hard when you have a child with special needs to make decisions because there is no immediate answer to whether that decision made was correct. You get your answer through time and chance. And sometimes it is a very long time before you even get an inkling of that answer. While all these decisions were being made and implemented, time seemed to crawl, as we waited to see if we guessed correctly. But now, 21 years into it, we are getting a feeling that just maybe, with all those fits and starts, that things might really work out for our son. Just maybe we have navigated the rocks and shoals, and are seeing the lighthouse in the distance that marks the entrance to his safe harbor. I know that is really an illusion, and there will be more challenges ahead, but Ian seems to be acquiring the tools he needs to address them as an adult, and that is the key to being independent. And as we look back on these last 21 years, time seems to have flown.
But I still feel old right now. You see two other things will happen this calendar year. Both my wife and I will turn 50. We are all of 12 days apart in age. It seems funny, but usually birthdays and age don’t really matter to me. I cannot stop that immense progress of time. As the Jimmy Buffett song says, “Just another trip around the sun”. But this year just feels different. Maybe it is a combination of watching Ian and seeing 3 birthdays approaching that all have a traditional level of significance in our world. Some of it, too, may be a bit too much time to think. I had some knee surgery this summer to clean up a long-standing problem. It required a lot of sitting time afterwards. It did not help to find out that my physical therapist is young enough to be my daughter…. Things like that are starting to happen more and more.
I am sure these feelings will pass. For me, they usually do. Schools are coming back in to session, and my job gets really busy once the school districts have the kids back. I still feel somewhat useful at my job, and my PT cleared me today to start doing some walking again for exercise. I’m guessing that soon enough I will be back to 4 or 5 miles a day. Time just continues to pass. But we are beginning to see that there really may be an end to the road of our first, and most important great mission in our lives – that of getting Ian into adulthood, independence, and hopefully. Just maybe our part of that quest will end in the next few years, and Ian will pick it up for himself. Just what we want and have hoped for. As an adult, it becomes his task. It does not mean that we won’t be around when he wants advice; just that he has reached that point of choosing his paths for himself.
Also, do not get me wrong, I’m not sad about getting older, it is just a realization. Like my wife tells me – I think too much. Too many things process through my head, and this summer I have had way too much time to allow my head to go where it wants. As I said, that will stop as my workload spins back up. My wife and I are talking about and making plans for the future and I realize that we are still about 17 years from retirement age. That isn’t really that close and I expect that getting there will take forever, but once I arrive it will have seemed like the blink of an eye. Oh well, so it goes – no sense in worrying about it, is there?
