Focus

I have been having a writers block since I got back from Option a month ago. In fact the block has gone beyond writing. I didn’t come back in a funk…but I went there to discover self trust and I have been questioning my place in the world since I returned…the role I will play in Griffen’s life and how I will continue to shape the kind of a man I am. I am having trouble doing both at the same time. I am someone who throws himself into something with all I have…work…love…what ever holds a passion for me. I run into trouble when I do this with things that over lap. I can multi task with the best of them as long as the tasks are all part of what my focus is on. But when I have my focus split with two things that overlap…like recovering Griff and making a life for myself I start to not know where to put my energy….my priorities constantly shift back and forth between them. I lose focus and I become what I am now…a mess. I invest in one and it takes focus and energy from the other and the guilt returns which further disrupts my forward motion. I struggle with creating the balance between the two. My problem…as I see it in this moment is I see the two, my goals and aspirations and Griff’s recovery, as separate entities. I am recovering my son…later I will have time to myself. There is something in this….I still see time to myself as an escape from recovering Griff…“shit”…have I not fully accepted his autism yet? …after all this time? Can that be? I feel so close to feeling that I have. I don’t know maybe that’s not it. Perhaps its just I spend too much time in the house and I have lost perspective. I suspect its both to some degree. I see them as separate but why must this be. Why can’t I weave the two together now? I understand the need to separate them before. I was emotionally and physically tapped out…Griff…when his autism was in full swing…it took all I had to get through the day…I needed the separation. But now that he’s better why do I cling to old patterns. I am trying to wrap my mind around this…trying to visualize what I am getting at…not seeing it.
I am working on creating more time for myself…finding a creative outlet. I feel good. But Griff’s recovery has caught me off guard. He has gone from this Tasmanian devil lost in his own world to a responsive kid who is now a willing sponge ready to soak up the world. I have come to the realization that I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing! I don’t know how to teach him all the things he needs to know. I would love to stick him in school like everyone else but improved as he is he is not near ready for school. I’m caught in a limbo of being a completely burned out on being a stay at home dad and scrambling to catch up in making a life for myself that will give me the energy and light to help my boy.
I question the way we are recovering him at times. I look around at all the paths we could have taken…its easy to compare your life to others. Griff is better but not recovered yet…I look at what we do because I lose perspective. I know in my heart we are doing the right thing. The conflict comes when look to myself and feel…no…know I am coming up short as a dad…a teacher. I know his life here is lacking in some ways…but he is doing so well now. On the days I am able to engage him properly he really shines I can see his recovery...close…a certainty. I feel as if I have fallen through the ice and I am clawing at the surface trying to pull myself back on to the ice before I get stuck underneath. I find myself in a desperate race to heal my son and myself at the same time and I’m having trouble doing both…I know there is a way…others are doing it. I know I need to do for myself before I can help him to my fullest capacity but putting myself first…because that’s what it feels like….goes against every grain in my body and the battle has left me at times at a complete standstill…lost to what direction to go in.
I just realized why I want to keep “my” life separate from Griff’s recovery. I have known it all along. I have not accepted it…his recovery as part of my identity....I have not chosen to love it yet…I have not developed a passion for it. I think I have been running from this. Wanting to create a life outside of this world I live in everyday. I can embrace it…that’s it….I have not wanted to embrace it because I thought I would have to give up my hopes and dreams for myself. It all comes back to my inability to focus on the two at the same time. To do one…in my mind I think I have to give one up so I have been straddling them both for years….not willing to dive into one for fear of letting the other go. Damn. The kicker is I know now this is a belief…I choose to see it this way and all it takes is a decision on my part to stop believing I have to see it this way. I can do both. I can have passion for both. Wow I recognize this…I can see it…now I have to route out the beliefs that have made this part of who I am….I have some work to do.