Dear Addie,
Not everyone is on your team—a life lesson we were reminded of this week. But before we get there, let's talk about the good stuff.
This week, your school headed to the theatre for an interactive musical performance. Unfortunately, with you being a part-time student, this didn't fall on one of your regularly scheduled days. However, knowing how hard theaters are for us, we were invited to come along. Your teachers and therapist knew this would be an excellent opportunity for some of that all-important "exposure is key" advice to take shape, so off to the show we go!
We arrived before your classmates and most of the other elementary and middle schools. The theatre greeter showed us where the restrooms and cool-down corner were (you were rocking some noise-canceling headphones and stimming pretty feverishly, which might have been her cue that we may need to find that corner at some point - or maybe they show everyone who knows) before finally showing us to our seats in the back of the theater.
You scanned the room, looked at me, and said, "Potty." OK, no problem, let's use the potty. You were like speedy Gonzalos to get out of that theatre as soon as I uttered the word "OK," and off to the restroom we went.
After using the potty and flushing the toilet eighteen times, it was time to head back to our seats. Let's do this! ...or not?!
We entered the much more packed theatre, hustling and bustling with excited kids. You turned to me and said, "No, thank you!" As a side note, I'm always impressed with your politeness. After several solid attempts to get you to sit, we inevitably headed to that cool-down corner our greeter referenced earlier. By this time, your teacher had arrived and headed our way to start working through your theatre aversion. We sat briefly to get used to the facility's noise. You moved your headphones away from one ear multiple times as if to test the waters on what type of auditory chaos was coming to you. After you seemed relaxed a bit, we tried moving the bean bag you were sitting on closer to the side door of the theatre - you made it to the hallway of the door before retreating, bean bag chair in tow, back to the cool-down corner. It's important to note that this was a big win as you made baby steps to participate. After another few minutes and a new strategy of a distracted activity - lollipop, anyone? You picked up the bean bag and tried again, only this time with great success, as you made it to sitting right outside the door. This was happening!
You sat there for a good twenty minutes, cautiously leaning your head closer to see what was happening, even swaying back and forth a few times to the music, before we were (very kindly) told the show was almost done, so we'd have to move away from the hallway (you know so we wouldn't get trampled!) We went back to the cool-down corner, where we spent the last 15-ish minutes of the show. You sat happily, stimming, rocking, and making happy sounds, playing with markers as I stood beside you. I felt so unbelievably proud of your progress today, and I suddenly felt like someone was staring at us. I looked up to find two older girls (8th graders, I'm assuming) leaning over the balcony above, motioning another girl to come and see while pointing, snickering, and laughing at us below. My heart sank. Why was our existence funny to them? Why did they think this was even appropriate? But then I'm reminded of life. We can preach kindness with every breath we take, but have you ever seen, let's say, a presidential election? All it is is two people saying horrible things about the candidate personally and their party - and that's on both sides of the aisle. Need I remind you they are running to be the actual president of our country—a leader, what an example. We've somehow excused this behavior as normal. While I wanted to go up there and give them a piece of my mind, I didn't. Instead, I hope that one day they will see the error of their ways and, look back to this moment and know they should've done better. Life is a series of choices, and on this day, they chose to do what they did, and it's a choice they will never get back.
The great Maya Angelou once wrote:
"You may shoot me with your words,
you may cut me with your eyes,
you may kill me with your hatefulness,
but still, like air, I'll rise."
No matter how much it stings, the behavior of others towards us will never diminish my pride in how well you did today or on any other day. We will keep moving forward and take great joy in knowing we will never make anyone feel less than, as our choices will always be for love and kindness.
Not everyone will be on our team Ad, but that's okay.
We'll rise. Always.
I love you.
Mom