venting: my hat

I have a hat that I love.

Or, rather, I HAD a hat; now it's a misshapen disk of rattan, which made me cry. "Someone," in doing the chores laid out yesterday, put quite a pile of books on top of my hat. It was not in the best shape to begin with--as I said, it was my favorite (and I don't have favorites easily!) and as such had been bumped around a bit. Still. The worst part? The "Someone" is apparently No One who lives in this house.

Isn't that always the way?

Of course I know the hat is just a hat. To you. To me, it is not only protection, but it was quite a find. I have a rather large, round parietal bone, and therefore have so much trouble finding hats that fit without giving me a headache or a rash on my forehead. This one was marked down AND I bought it while shopping with my brother, to boot! It was a special hat, to say the least.

It's what the hat represents that bugs me. In our house, so much of the "stuff," though replaceable and material, does have meaning to me. That's not to say I can't live without it, or would call it more valuable than my family, but I am very sentimental, and tend to identify with the emotions  and feelings related to my stuff. All I have ever asked is that my housemates show some respect for my stuff.

Because it represents me.

There are many people in my life that care about me, and I appreciate each and every one of them. For some reason, though, many of the people that I care the most about--my children, my mother, my blood--seem to think I'm just a hat. That I can be scrunched and mashed, stuffed, tossed, and simply re-blocked. For most of my life, I've lived with it; rolled with it. I can't. What I have to say, and what I find to be important are no less valid than what others say and feel. It's beginning to hurt me physically that my spoken words, my actions, my being do not carry weight; that when someone else says the same things, they are suddenly more authoritative and compelling.

Respect me. For me.

Don't get me wrong: I do not need someone to come save me. My husband is wonderful at talking me through the times when I need it most; I genuinely matter to him. What I need is to stand up myself. To tell those who dismiss me that they simply cannot. They are not people I can ingenuously walk away from--I love them for what we have shared, for who they are to me. I'm not angry with them. Just hurt by their offhand manner. I have value, I mean something. I can only be re-blocked so many times.

My hat represents me. It is not me, but it stands for my spirit. Don't try to break it.

ouch

My son's shoulder hurts. Hurts as in, has a feeling that can only be described by words that are supposed to be attributed to sounds. Words like "grind," "crackle" and the like. Because he is a swimmer, this is a bad thing. Because he is a very good swimmer, this is a BAD THING. And at the moment, I'm taking it rather personally. I know this is silly, but I'm his mom. I'm supposed to keep him safe, or at the very least, be able to make it all better. Instead, I all I can do is check with our insurance to see what, if any, physical therapy might be available. He went for PT last spring.

Being his mom means that I probably should have nagged him more about wearing his backpack the right way; high on his shoulders and tight to his back. Not that there is much in his backpack, or rather, was much in there in the past. This year, he has more work to do. He's being more conscientious about his schoolwork. I'm proud of him for realizing how important his education is, and I'm thrilled that I don't have to get on him to get his work done. Yet I still feel guilty for 'choosing my battles' and deciding that the whole backpack thing would make sense to him before college, when he really will have loads of books to cart around. (Who am I kidding--college when he gets there will probably mean just a computer, and one that is far lighter than my laptop!)

Being his mom means that I probably should have been more involved in his swim program. There is no real, comprehensive dryland program with it. They run some, but no stretching, no strength training, nothing that I, as a dancer, consider to be important in balancing the muscles he uses to swim. And when he went to PT, I should probably have insisted that the therapist give him a comprehensive progression of exercises to go beyond what they had worked on to keep him interested in the program. When he does the exercises they gave him for "homework" and ongoing therapy, I get bored, so I can understand why he rushes through them with little to no regard for form. And, because I am his mom and he is 15, he doesn't really want to hear from me about how to properly do them.

Being his mom means that I probably should be more forceful in limiting his computer time, mostly because he sits with his computer on his lap, his arms completely unsupported. At least he puts pillows under his knees like I told him he should when he started to complain about his knees hurting. Because I am his mom, I am hurting, too. I wish I knew how to make it all better; how to not only make the pain go away, but also how to make it stay better.

Tomorrow, I'll call the insurance company and ask if he can go back to PT. Then I suppose I'll have to call the doctor to get a referral. I wish there was a better way. I believe in PT, but I know full well from my own experience that sticking with the exercises just doesn't happen. PT does not lead to the lifestyle change that he'll need to continue swimming at the level he wants to swim.

Until then, I'll wonder how else I could have done things. What else I could have done or said. Why? Because I am his mom. It's what I do. And we'll see what we can do for Henry's shoulder.