Backstory

How does anyone describe herself? I have listed my age, my kids, my job. I have hinted at my generally irritable nature. I can list a few interests - documentaries, cooking, skiing, travel. But whatever I say, there is a back story that colors everything.

My oldest son was diagnosed with autism at three, and our family spend the next nine years living and breathing therapy and legal battles; while he "lost" his diagnosis at seven, we were still left with some severe language and learning issues to resolve. We still live lives slightly askew because of his history; we still meet with teachers, schedule evaluations, worry about his lack of social life.

But for the most part, the battle is quiet these day, perhaps even over. We had braced ourselves for his teenage years, but unlike many kids with disabilities, he has bloomed in adolescence. Frontal lobe development, good services come to fruition, divine intervention? Who knows, but I have reason to feel infinitely grateful.

But, you know, I still worry. I don't know what will happen down the road. And my thirties are gone.

During those years, I didn't work full-time. Sometimes I didn't work at all. You can't take an autistic child to a daycare; you can't manage a child's full-time home program from an office. But I didn't have the perks of stay-at-home mom-hood, either - play dates, dinner with other families, experimenting with recipes. All the things I'd done on my days off when he was little, I couldn't do any more. Some were logistically impossible; others were a victim of my decimated concentration. Who can enjoy cooking when there's a life and death struggle for a child's future going on upstairs? Who wants to have dinner with the new people in town who are so worried and distracted and whose child is so strange?

These days, I'm grateful, but I also have to assess the fallout. I'm deeply cynical about people who live in my town. A few were lovely during our struggle; many were less than kind. I'm suspicious of anything I read in the newspaper, hear from an expert: I know how disastrously mistaken they can be, how they can reverse themselves without blinking an eye when it's too late. I've lost a decade of career development. My marriage and retirement account are in tatters. And there are silly little things I can't do, like pick up a phone.

I remind myself how lucky I am, that my son got better. How lucky the people in his life were so loving, so skilled, so giving of themselves. How lucky I am to have a sister, extended family, good friends, a job I love.

But honestly? That doesn't make the damage go away. I just know it could have been worse.