Winter is on the wane, snow and ice are melting at last. With little more than a month left to go our daughter is working through her final tasks, among them starting a fire with a bow-drill. For my part I’m looking forward to spending some time together again.
In our discussions with the therapists talk has been shifting away from examining the past, near and far, in favor of the present and considering the future. Not the near future that I was looking forward to, but the further out future. We are being asked to think about what we envision as the most helpful next step for our daughter (and by association, ourselves) to take.
At that time, now about a year in the past, I wanted to believe that with the right support, our daughter could pick up her cat, find a roommate, and resume her studies at our nearby university. I wasn't wholly naive, I knew she would need help and to that end I was looking for a good education consultant in the area to advocate for her needs at the uni, keep in close contact with her and generally be aware of how she was doing. Yes, acting as a buffer to preserve the fragile distance we have achieved in the last two months.
Now, as I write this, I understand better why this was not such a good idea for her, but at the time I was still too close emotionally. I’m sensitive to cues (even if I sometimes ignore or override them) so I was aware that both therapists were not keen on the local path. They were firm in the opinion that the program they thought would be the best fit for our daughter was on the other side of the country and never wavered. I don't think they were wrong, either.
After every one of these discussions I would hang up feeling deeply uncomfortable, knowing that they were being patient with me, trusting me to come around, however reluctantly to the “right” choice. I was being managed, as my sister-in-law calls it, being guided inexorably toward agreeing that if our daughter chose the program out west we would support her choice. With consummate tact they allowed me to work my way through the options at my own pace. Our daughter’s therapist even did an unprecedented thing and the two went for a visit to the one program in the area which would enable our daughter to both live in a transition setting and continue at the university nearby.
As you can see there was a double, even a triple whammy in the offing. First off, we had to accept that our daughter would not be ready for some time to live on her own; second we needed to hear and heed that the therapists agreed the best program for her was the one in the northwest; third, and hardest of all to comprehend, was that even if the best program had been nearby, they felt that for our daughter’s independent development both we and she would benefit from having a period of real distance in time and space.
I’m going to go off “script” here, in the sense that I am going to say something more personal and controversial. I still don’t totally accept this distance thing. I “get” it: this idea of being independent by going off on your own, maybe forever, is deeply embedded in our culture. And I did it myself, spent full year abroad when I was twenty, and although I lived with an aunt and uncle for the first few months I did eventually move into an apartment with a friend when I felt ready.
Even so I suspect that American culture has an extremely weird take on what constitutes a “normal” family life at the core of which is the notion that at 18 or so you should be able to cope on your own and that this is necessary if you are to lead a full and independent life. For a great many this means moving far away from home and family ties. This is not true around the world, and is no more than a cultural norm evolved here long ago when economics forced families to send children and young adults away to seek their fortunes elsewhere, wherever and however they could. Ironically, I developed this idea from a book I read during our daughter’s time at wilderness therapy (recommended by her therapist) called It Didn’t Start With You. The book focusses on family trauma and how things repeat and repeat if not brought into the open. When I was being "managed" into supporting the choice of a far away program, I thought a lot about our collective trauma as Americans—the one we all (but a few) share—that of having to leave everything behind, our home countries, customs and languages to come here to try to make a “better” life. Whether voluntary or involuntary this experience constitutes a break of monstrous proportions that I suspect has echoed in our culture in mostly negative ways for hundreds of years, but so be it. This is how we do things. I gave in.
Even so I suspect that American culture has an extremely weird take on what constitutes a “normal” family life at the core of which is the notion that at 18 or so you should be able to cope on your own and that this is necessary if you are to lead a full and independent life. For a great many this means moving far away from home and family ties. This is not true around the world, and is no more than a cultural norm evolved here long ago when economics forced families to send children and young adults away to seek their fortunes elsewhere, wherever and however they could. Ironically, I developed this idea from a book I read during our daughter’s time at wilderness therapy (recommended by her therapist) called It Didn’t Start With You. The book focusses on family trauma and how things repeat and repeat if not brought into the open. When I was being "managed" into supporting the choice of a far away program, I thought a lot about our collective trauma as Americans—the one we all (but a few) share—that of having to leave everything behind, our home countries, customs and languages to come here to try to make a “better” life. Whether voluntary or involuntary this experience constitutes a break of monstrous proportions that I suspect has echoed in our culture in mostly negative ways for hundreds of years, but so be it. This is how we do things. I gave in.
However, I gave way and do not regret. The program has been life-changing for our daughter, giving her everything we could have hoped for in the way of support and counseling and also deep friendships. Making your own way is a rite of passage, but permanently? I hope not. In my adult life I’ve never considered for an instant living more than day’s drive away from the majority of my siblings and my parents (when they were still alive). If I can believe my therapist and hers, our family is essentially fine, we got over-involved after the break (what is a better name for that?), but we're well inside the ok zone and not only love one another but, even better, like one another. She'll return eastward when she's ready. Or not. Out of my hands.
I started this essay with a photo of a Borg from Star Trek, and then I realized as I wrote, how very negative an image that is, how clearly it showed my ambivalence about my daughter being so very far away. I chose this image out of my feeling of having been trammeled into accepting a norm I don't really agree with. But I changed the image because the Borg are all about violence being done to force individuals to all act and be the same. Not appropriate at all. The distance in space and time is for her to expand and grow in, the direct opposite.
I changed the photographs to a crocuses and snowdrops in the snow, because while winter is relentless, so is the arrival of spring. The challenges will keep coming but so will the flowers.
I’ll be holding onto that thought.
I’ll be holding onto that thought.
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