I have taken to using an analogy to describe my growing suspicion about the truth of my evolving role as a parent. I may have mentioned it in earlier blogs, but I'm about to beat it to death in this one. :-)
You know that awful Olympic sport, Curling...? The one that seems to be the TV stations' favorite filler during the olympics when no other actual SPORT is on at the moment? Curling, to the uneducated me, combines all the funnest elements of shuffleboard and sweeping your house. Basically, one person sends the granite stone, aka "the rock" (a big disky kind of object) zooming down the ice path while his or her compatriots sweep the ice madly in front of the rock, trying to guide it to a given spot down the road. Sometimes the rock hits other rocks and alters its course, which then seems to cause frantic sweeping and yelling of commands from the rock launcher, aka "skip".
So.
I've decided my current role as a parent is to launch the rock, aka teenager, down the path of life, and swoop around it, sweeping madly to try and help keep it, er, her, relatively on course. Sometimes the rock, er, teenager, slams into other rocks and changes course, which elicits much consternation from the skip, er, mother and further frantic sweeping to adjust course.
BUT. Ultimately that rock is heading down the course the skip shoved it on, and it's pretty much all over except the frantic sweeping and a bit of yelling here and there.
My two rocks, er, daughters, took off down that course almost without warning. And, frankly, that launch seemed to coincide with the biofather's inexplicable decision to check out of our world for 7 months starting, essentially, January 2011. Once they started living here full time, their confidence and personalities just seemed to soar... and off they went, leaving their skip (yes, me) searching frantically for her broom (yes, I know what I just said).
I've told my attorney, the counselor trying desperately to focus the biofather on the real issues and secure some sort of "reunification", the psychologist assessing my/our parenting skills, and pretty much anyone else involved in the situation that the bus has left... and there is plenty of room on it for positive contributors, BUT, it's well on it's way, with or without the rest of us. Smart adults will actually jump ON the bus rather than try to stand in front of the bus and expect it to stop and reset to when it was just a little van.
The forward momentum has had fits and starts, of course. The PCS, the issues on the old swim team, occasional biofather related disruptions that actually affected the girls (missed school or practices for "counseling" or other command performances, the early disruption when he first began appearing at events again, a few bombed tests here and there caused by anger/stress related to interactions with him...)... all have periodically caused the bus to backfire. (Wait, I'm mixing metaphors now... caused the rock to scrape? Caused the rock to briefly alter course? Maybe I need to put the rock on the bus or something...)
Anyway, I'd love nothing more than to have the biofather sweeping along with us, on the bus. Unfortunately, he has chosen to run alongside the rock, yelling incoherently and accusing the skip of turning the rock against him.
As BiM's decisions related to academics and athletics become more important (i.e. should she take a full slate of upper level classes... to wit... AP European History, Honors Chem, Honors Alg II, Honors Spanish and Honors Eng, or should she heed the Honors English teacher's doom and gloom warning that "if *I* had a daughter *I* would not let her take both Honors Eng and AP Euro" and take her 600 SAT verbal score as a 14 year old and go to AP English as an 11th grader, where presumably the teacher will not be so...negative...?) the conversations become far less one sided and far more interactive, and it becomes increasingly obvious that BiM has a good handle on her own mind and how it works. (For example, She wants to prove the teacher wrong, but realizes she does not care enough to warrant the hassle or the risk of taking a subjective course lorded over by a teacher who didn't want her in her class. Could she do it? Sure. Should she? Nah. She doesn't want to go Ivy (which is fine with us) and none of us at this house have our personal images and self-esteem wrapped up in the issue of what school either child attends for college, so... )
Now, before I get fileted for not caring enough about academics, let me be clear... yes, academics are important. But they are not, alone, what gives a person soul, or depth, or happiness. It doesn't matter how much STUFF a person knows if they know nothing about themselves or the world around them. In my opinion... And, since this is my blog and my children.... lol.
I think as they race down the ice, er, path of teenagerhood towards adult humanness, there have been two HUGE turning points in their personalities and development. The first is the aforementioned biofatherus disappearus. The second is the Team DiPaolo unanimous decision to change swim teams. The girls had asked on numerous occasions in the year(s) prior if they could go to Bolles or somewhere else for club swimming. At times BiM, especially, had mentioned not wanting to swim anymore if it was for the old team. While their times continued to trend in a positive direction, their experiences and attitudes and overall happiness were increasingly trending negatively.
The run up to the state series last fall was... difficult. The state series itself was...interesting. The culture of "play time" and "lip service" was wearing on us. I read somewhere that we teach our children not to trust their instincts... and that teaching them that actually leads to lots of problems down the road that could be avoided. The philosophy of preserving the girls' instincts governed my parenting long before I read it, and the girls' bullsh*t detectors remain fully operational. We also operate under the belief that, at some point, if you've given a situation or a person enough opportunity to change or improve, and it has not, then it is time to make a choice: either give up and accept it the way it is, or move on. The girls, amazingly, are better at it than I am (which is why *I* am the only one who still feels bad about the situation with the biofather... everyone else has long moved on and left me in the confusing place of being the target who feels bad that the attacker has screwed everything up and is missing out on everything).
Anyway, the girls were ready to move on from the team before I was ready to accept the inevitable. They are fearless... it didn't occur to them people would look askance, and, in their minds, if people DO look askance, then those people become irrelevant. The girls know what they want and, apparently, you are either a supportive part of them achieving it or you are invisible. People pay shrinks thousands of dollars to try and achieve that internal equilibrium, lol.
So, move they did, after several long discussions of possible ramifications and reactions and future scenarios. BiM, especially, never felt accepted or liked by the older swimmers on the other team. LiM loved her friends, but hated the pervasive "play time" atmosphere and didn't like how older kids treated BiM. Neither child appreciated being mocked for wanting to challenge themselves. As a parent, I never felt comfortable leaving the girls in the hands of the coaching staff, as their lack of oversight, awareness in general, and professionalism scared the hell out of me.
It took all of a single practice at North Florida for the smiles to start coming back on the girls' faces.
Fast forward three months and the difference is profound. Confidence, attitude, comfort level, energy and enthusiasm for the team and the sport.... all off the charts. Actually having a coaching staff they trust and respect is a Godsend. While it is wonderful that their times have dropped, the more important thing to us is that they are now in a program with a plan and with structure, where they are accepted in all their quirkiness (Um, BiM...) and sensitivity (that would be LiM) and where I feel 100% comfortable dropping them at practice and going for a run, or sitting at the pool reading with no clue what lane they are in or what they are doing.
(I feel like I should insert a curling or bus reference here, lol, to keep the theme going....)
As the girls' rocks go hurtling down the ice and we go sweeping madly next to them, occasionally having to leap over them as they careen off a stray rock and change direction slightly, I really do feel like our greatest contribution as parents from here on out is to stay out of their way. I'm here for guidance, and consultation, and perspective, and to do laundry and pack lunches and dispense hugs as needed, and occasionally remind the hurtling rocks of the boundaries of their path as long as *I* am still sweeping it....
So there you have it. Parenthood boils down to giving your child a good shove on the ice and staying on, rather than under, the bus.
...that's my why, what's yours?
16 March 2012
15 March 2012
Welcome to the twilight zone
Wow, four months... a new unrecord for not writing. I've wanted to write, and Lord knows I've had plenty to write about, but it just hasn't come out. I could write volumes about the ongoing experience of being the target of a vindictive, wealthy, too-much-time-on-his-hands, arrogant, socially inept, James-Taggert-in-polo-shirts stalker, but I'll save that for another day. I could write smaller volumes about the inverse relationship between the girls' success in academics and athletics and my training volume. I could write at length about our decision to leave one swim club and join another, but I think I'll just let some of that intertwine with whatever it is I'm here to write about today.
What am I writing about today....hm... usually things just flow... (Crickets chirping)
Eight days ago I had just finished icing my knees after a workout and was all of 2 minutes into a much needed shower when my cell phone blew up. My first hint was when a friend who I haven't spoken to via voice in a year called three times, back to back to back. Then another swim parent called. Then the texts started pouring in, the first one of which read "shooting at Episcopal, two dead", which caused me to dive, dripping wet, to the tv remote to turn on local news. I think I was on the phone briefly with the swim parent friend (Jana? Was that you?) before trying to get a hold of Matthew, who was in a meeting. The first words the TV talking face said was "no students involved" which helped bring the heart rate down below 400, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't shaking like a leaf. At some point BiM texted from a friends' phone to say they were huddled against the wall with the door locked and the blinds drawn and that they'd heard a scream and some of the kids heard shots. She asked if I knew what had happened. The second text I had gotten came from someone who had talked to a JSO buddy, and the word was already there that Dale had been killed.
The cell continued to blow up (and my stupid android chokes on itself after a while, so I could see stuff coming in but not really respond). My lovely exhusband even texted about it, so I called him as I drove to ESJ to let him know I'd heard from BiM (gee, bet THAT won't make it into the next whiny attorney letter or manifesto he sends out, huh...). The drive up was a blur, but I did notice a bunch of other cars with golden "E"s on them racing along as well. Matthew met me at the gas station across from school, and we joined ranks with the hundreds of other cars waiting in line to get onto campus and down to the main pick up.
The news crews and police units were everywhere. We sat in line for probably 20+ minutes before I got enough "where are you" and other kinds of texts that I jumped out and walked down to where the kids were waiting while Matthew stayed with the truck. The scene was controlled chaos. Teachers and staff had formed a kind of holding pen for the kids, who were lined up 4 and 5 deep along the sidewalk. Mr. Day, BiM's life management teacher and one of LiM's track coaches, was calling out names of kids' whose parents were there. Other teachers were directing traffic and escorting kids to cars. I saw a lot of tears, a lot of vacant looks, and a few kids handling the stress by acting like... kids.
I wandered through the herd until I found the girls, and LiM started to tell me that her first thought when the school went into lockdown was that something had happened to her sister. The tears came full force when she told me about some "stupid idiot boy" who was cheering because of the extra days off of school. As we walked back out of the mass towards the truck the girls got big hugs from Mr. Day, we jumped in the truck as it came up and drove out through the chaos. My lasting memory of those moments will be the looks on the faces of the teachers and staff we know who were directing traffic etc. It was some awful mixture of horror, shock, and a concerted effort to hold it together for the sake of the kids.
I'm sure everyone handles situations like that differently, as a family and as individuals. We watched some news for a while, and talked about what we knew. The girls told their stories (where they were, what they heard and were told, how everyone handled it and reacted... what they thought and felt etc). Interestingly enough, BiM had heard that Schumerth had been fired and escorted off campus that morning, and as they were huddled in lockdown she turned to her friend and said "I bet it was Mr. Schumerth going nuts"....
And we let the girls drive the conversation, with questions, comments, observations etc.
They decided they wanted to go to swim practice that night, as we were two days away from leaving for FLAGS (Florida Age Group Swimming Champs) and they wanted to be with their friends.
No one slept very well Tuesday night. Wednesday we were off of school, but the teachers were going to be in their classrooms from 10-11 and counselors were going to be at school. BiM didn't think she wanted to go, but I told her I thought it was very important to get back on campus ASAP and not have a 12 day hiatus with your last memories of the school being the aftermath of the shooting. They coordinated with a friend or two and decided going was a good idea.
The interesting part of that morning was listening to them work their way through going, and what they wanted to do to show their feelings. They discussed what was appropriate to wear, with Lexi choosing chapel dress and a black sweater and Christi picking black pants and a black sweater. Their dress was very significant to them. They asked to pick up flowers or something to leave at the growing shrine, so we did. We pulled onto campus around 9:45. No one was at the shrine, although three news trucks were parked there, waiting.
As soon as the girls got out to walk over with the flowers, the news vultures swarmed. Two crews were literally RUNNING from their trucks. Before I knew it, the girls were surrounded by cameras and reporters. One, a younger man, the girls liked and said seemed sincere. They did not care for the other two. I was about to rescue them when they finally broke away and came to the truck (cameras videotaping the entire thing).
So, both girls ended up on local news stations, as did a number of their friends. Some of the vultures seemed interested in reporting the NEWS; some seemed more intent on sensationalizing or trying to cast blame on the school for not seeing this coming or somehow preventing it.
We spent the next two hours walking around campus, hugging and talking to teachers. I think it was as much for the teachers' sake as the kids' that I wanted us to go. I think the teachers did a tremendous job during the lock down and immediate aftermath, but that everyone was pretty much on equal, unknown, awful footing after that... and if I were a teacher I would not have wanted to head home for ten days, OR be alone with my thoughts in my classroom.
BiM reached her limit after a couple of hours, followed quickly by LiM, but both commented on how glad they were to have gone.
The ensuing days, while interrupted by a swim meet (thank goodness) and 4 days out of town, plus a coinciding visit from the grandparents, have brought various conversations and comments with/from the girls on the topic. As we've spent some time back on campus I think we've started losing some of the jumpiness we all felt in the first days. At first the girls were upset that someone removed the large makeshift shrine at the entrance; now it does seem to be helping to get back to the new normal.
Some news vultures have tried to paint a picture of ESJ as an unsafe place, lacking in security, which really pisses us off. Unless we surround that school with a 10' high barbed wire fence and have armed guards, I fail to see how such an unforeseeable, random event could be prevented. This incessant need to blame -- SOMEONE -- for every random or awful act or event is insanity. To sit with the vantage of hindsight and declare that someone should have read the tea leaves and predicted an event is arrogance personified, imo. Sometimes there is indeed negligence, but not always. ALWAYS there is something someone somewhere would have done differently had s/he known the event would ultimately occur. But it's easy to look at the backstory from the vantage of knowing the ending.
We in Casa DiPaolo prefer to think that Shane Schumerth was slipping into the morass of mental illness in the way that so many do.... a long slow decline, filled with oddness and, in retrospect, warning signs that could just as easily have remained "oddness" and never culminated in insanity or criminal activity. (How many people do we really know who are "off" or "odd" or "socially awkward" yet have never garnered headlines for some random act of insanity? If we sounded the warning bells for every quirky, difficult, unreasonable, or oddly behaving person on this planet there would not be many left roaming freely.) We prefer not to think of this as an act of evil, but rather as an act of a man who mentally and emotionally snapped.... yet snapped in a way that did NOT include killing children. Go figure.
In moments of idleness I wonder... what would have happened if Dale had not been in her office? Would he have backtracked one door to the science class? Continued on 50 feet or so to the Spanish classrooms? Walked the campus trying to find her? Or killed himself in her office as a statement for her to find? Somehow, I have to think that Dale would have chosen the way it played out if the only other options involved harm to students and other staff members. Which of course brings us to one of the first questions the girls asked: do you think she died thinking he was going to shoot more people, or did she live long enough to see him shoot himself...?
Let's go with the latter.
...that's my why, what's yours?
What am I writing about today....hm... usually things just flow... (Crickets chirping)
Eight days ago I had just finished icing my knees after a workout and was all of 2 minutes into a much needed shower when my cell phone blew up. My first hint was when a friend who I haven't spoken to via voice in a year called three times, back to back to back. Then another swim parent called. Then the texts started pouring in, the first one of which read "shooting at Episcopal, two dead", which caused me to dive, dripping wet, to the tv remote to turn on local news. I think I was on the phone briefly with the swim parent friend (Jana? Was that you?) before trying to get a hold of Matthew, who was in a meeting. The first words the TV talking face said was "no students involved" which helped bring the heart rate down below 400, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't shaking like a leaf. At some point BiM texted from a friends' phone to say they were huddled against the wall with the door locked and the blinds drawn and that they'd heard a scream and some of the kids heard shots. She asked if I knew what had happened. The second text I had gotten came from someone who had talked to a JSO buddy, and the word was already there that Dale had been killed.
The cell continued to blow up (and my stupid android chokes on itself after a while, so I could see stuff coming in but not really respond). My lovely exhusband even texted about it, so I called him as I drove to ESJ to let him know I'd heard from BiM (gee, bet THAT won't make it into the next whiny attorney letter or manifesto he sends out, huh...). The drive up was a blur, but I did notice a bunch of other cars with golden "E"s on them racing along as well. Matthew met me at the gas station across from school, and we joined ranks with the hundreds of other cars waiting in line to get onto campus and down to the main pick up.
The news crews and police units were everywhere. We sat in line for probably 20+ minutes before I got enough "where are you" and other kinds of texts that I jumped out and walked down to where the kids were waiting while Matthew stayed with the truck. The scene was controlled chaos. Teachers and staff had formed a kind of holding pen for the kids, who were lined up 4 and 5 deep along the sidewalk. Mr. Day, BiM's life management teacher and one of LiM's track coaches, was calling out names of kids' whose parents were there. Other teachers were directing traffic and escorting kids to cars. I saw a lot of tears, a lot of vacant looks, and a few kids handling the stress by acting like... kids.
I wandered through the herd until I found the girls, and LiM started to tell me that her first thought when the school went into lockdown was that something had happened to her sister. The tears came full force when she told me about some "stupid idiot boy" who was cheering because of the extra days off of school. As we walked back out of the mass towards the truck the girls got big hugs from Mr. Day, we jumped in the truck as it came up and drove out through the chaos. My lasting memory of those moments will be the looks on the faces of the teachers and staff we know who were directing traffic etc. It was some awful mixture of horror, shock, and a concerted effort to hold it together for the sake of the kids.
I'm sure everyone handles situations like that differently, as a family and as individuals. We watched some news for a while, and talked about what we knew. The girls told their stories (where they were, what they heard and were told, how everyone handled it and reacted... what they thought and felt etc). Interestingly enough, BiM had heard that Schumerth had been fired and escorted off campus that morning, and as they were huddled in lockdown she turned to her friend and said "I bet it was Mr. Schumerth going nuts"....
And we let the girls drive the conversation, with questions, comments, observations etc.
They decided they wanted to go to swim practice that night, as we were two days away from leaving for FLAGS (Florida Age Group Swimming Champs) and they wanted to be with their friends.
No one slept very well Tuesday night. Wednesday we were off of school, but the teachers were going to be in their classrooms from 10-11 and counselors were going to be at school. BiM didn't think she wanted to go, but I told her I thought it was very important to get back on campus ASAP and not have a 12 day hiatus with your last memories of the school being the aftermath of the shooting. They coordinated with a friend or two and decided going was a good idea.
The interesting part of that morning was listening to them work their way through going, and what they wanted to do to show their feelings. They discussed what was appropriate to wear, with Lexi choosing chapel dress and a black sweater and Christi picking black pants and a black sweater. Their dress was very significant to them. They asked to pick up flowers or something to leave at the growing shrine, so we did. We pulled onto campus around 9:45. No one was at the shrine, although three news trucks were parked there, waiting.
As soon as the girls got out to walk over with the flowers, the news vultures swarmed. Two crews were literally RUNNING from their trucks. Before I knew it, the girls were surrounded by cameras and reporters. One, a younger man, the girls liked and said seemed sincere. They did not care for the other two. I was about to rescue them when they finally broke away and came to the truck (cameras videotaping the entire thing).
So, both girls ended up on local news stations, as did a number of their friends. Some of the vultures seemed interested in reporting the NEWS; some seemed more intent on sensationalizing or trying to cast blame on the school for not seeing this coming or somehow preventing it.
We spent the next two hours walking around campus, hugging and talking to teachers. I think it was as much for the teachers' sake as the kids' that I wanted us to go. I think the teachers did a tremendous job during the lock down and immediate aftermath, but that everyone was pretty much on equal, unknown, awful footing after that... and if I were a teacher I would not have wanted to head home for ten days, OR be alone with my thoughts in my classroom.
BiM reached her limit after a couple of hours, followed quickly by LiM, but both commented on how glad they were to have gone.
The ensuing days, while interrupted by a swim meet (thank goodness) and 4 days out of town, plus a coinciding visit from the grandparents, have brought various conversations and comments with/from the girls on the topic. As we've spent some time back on campus I think we've started losing some of the jumpiness we all felt in the first days. At first the girls were upset that someone removed the large makeshift shrine at the entrance; now it does seem to be helping to get back to the new normal.
Some news vultures have tried to paint a picture of ESJ as an unsafe place, lacking in security, which really pisses us off. Unless we surround that school with a 10' high barbed wire fence and have armed guards, I fail to see how such an unforeseeable, random event could be prevented. This incessant need to blame -- SOMEONE -- for every random or awful act or event is insanity. To sit with the vantage of hindsight and declare that someone should have read the tea leaves and predicted an event is arrogance personified, imo. Sometimes there is indeed negligence, but not always. ALWAYS there is something someone somewhere would have done differently had s/he known the event would ultimately occur. But it's easy to look at the backstory from the vantage of knowing the ending.
We in Casa DiPaolo prefer to think that Shane Schumerth was slipping into the morass of mental illness in the way that so many do.... a long slow decline, filled with oddness and, in retrospect, warning signs that could just as easily have remained "oddness" and never culminated in insanity or criminal activity. (How many people do we really know who are "off" or "odd" or "socially awkward" yet have never garnered headlines for some random act of insanity? If we sounded the warning bells for every quirky, difficult, unreasonable, or oddly behaving person on this planet there would not be many left roaming freely.) We prefer not to think of this as an act of evil, but rather as an act of a man who mentally and emotionally snapped.... yet snapped in a way that did NOT include killing children. Go figure.
In moments of idleness I wonder... what would have happened if Dale had not been in her office? Would he have backtracked one door to the science class? Continued on 50 feet or so to the Spanish classrooms? Walked the campus trying to find her? Or killed himself in her office as a statement for her to find? Somehow, I have to think that Dale would have chosen the way it played out if the only other options involved harm to students and other staff members. Which of course brings us to one of the first questions the girls asked: do you think she died thinking he was going to shoot more people, or did she live long enough to see him shoot himself...?
Let's go with the latter.
...that's my why, what's yours?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)