Feeling Failing

I sent my eldest son a text yesterday, telling him that we have something new in common: I had a crummy job interview too. He'd complained to me back in March that he thought he did poorly in a job interview and I told him at the time that everyone feels that way at least some of the time, that I am a lot older and have felt that way too. Little did I know that a month and change later, I would be having one of those crummy interview experiences. But what was charming and lovely was Sam's response to my text message: "Awwww Mommy, I'm sorry." Love and life are certainly reciprocal experiences, only meaningful when shared in relationship to others. As a parent, it feels like I always have to be the strong one, the tree to be leaned against. Sometimes though, I feel like the bent branch. I hesitate to show that vulnerability to my kids, but then I think that they need to see it, to know that strength is not only found in steely stoicism. One of the most enduring memories I have of my father is seeing him cry. Even then, I knew it took a unique strength for a man to cry, and a superhuman strength for him to do it in front of his children. In that circle of life and memory way that I live, one of the times I regularly show my vulnerability is when I go to the cemetery. Sam and I have gone together on several occasions, and I always tell him, through my tears, how much I hate that place, how I cannot stand that this is where my father--his grandfather--is. I don't want to pretend a reverence for that place that I don't feel. I hate that the cemetery is in an ugly urban neighborhood, that the people who live near it have no feeling for the people buried there. I want my kids to know that it's ok to push against convention, to say out loud what other people might only whisper to themselves. In a funny way, that's exactly what parenting an autistic child teaches you. There are not just the myriad lessons about failure, but the many more lessons Noah teaches me about what real honesty looks and sounds like. He only knows how to be who he is. There is no other persona he can put on display for an interview. God, that must be liberating. Just to be. I think I come close most of the time but this week, I left some important part of me in the waiting room, or so it felt. Maybe the questions just seemed so stilted and dull that I couldn't quite connect. As my husband often says, I have no bullshit factor, no poker face. So in those "sell yourself" moments, I am as handicapped as I can be. Ah well, such is life. Sometimes, all clicks and flows. Other times, you feel like the only person on the dance floor with no rhythm. But then the person who is supposed to lean on and look up to you reaches out and let's you know it's okay. Failing isn't the end of the world. It's just being human.