Friday, June 25, 2010

The 3rd day of summer vacation

Here it is day 3 of summer vacation and the boredom has arrived with a vengeance. A vague arrangement for a pool party at a classmate's house has so far not materialized and so here we sit, waiting for the phone to ring. Back when Sam was 4 or 5 and social attachments were not supposed to be a huge part of his life, I really wasn't seeing the depths of his disability. Now that he is 9, at an age where he "should" be phoning friends, receiving invitations, getting dropped off at activities, and having sleepovers, he ie experiencing none of the above and there is a huge gaping black hole where those things should be. I remember experiencing some minor summer boredom when I was a kid, but usually it was two or three weeks into it, after the company went home, the books were read, and the toys we dragged out got old again. It seemed like I always could call a friend to play with, or just talk on the phone. Sam has no friends outside of school interactions or things I set up with old play group kids. He has never receieved a phone call invitation from a friend to do something. He has no siblings to play with or fight with. My guilt over everything is as huge as his boredom. Did I screw up by not having any more kids? Do I not do enough to get him out into the community? Is this gonna be his lot in life, no friends, no prospects, nothing to do? Will he have nobody after Tom and I are gone? These are the things I think about on a daily basis. Hearing him ask me why his classmate's mother hasn't called about getting together today is like a stab to the heart. It's things like this that make Asperger's hard for me to bear sometimes, and when it gets tough for me to see anything positive about it. I feel like everyone else's kid is experiencing the "typical" and "normal" things that happen in childhood, and mine is missing out. What the hell did I do so bad in my life that my child deserves this? I wish I could answer that. Sometimes I feel paralyzed by this disability, not able to see a way out of the dense forest, lacking in strength to try.