Dad On Duty #46

At 2:30 in the afternoon, I’m standing on the landing at the 3rd grade stairs, crying.

How the hell did I end up here?

This is my volunteer job. I don’t think its supposed to make me cry.

Yet here I am, flanked by pitifully under-watered plants and rather odd elementary student art, having a little meltdown.

Mind you, I don’t cry much. You gotta kick me pretty hard in the shins to get me to sniffle.

I’ve experienced some stuff.

*******

Both the boys I work with had bad days today. I spent an hour each trying to unscrew their days, in turn.

My results were disappointing to say the least. With one boy, I think we had a mediocre response, but I also got a glimpse of much more need looming. I felt overwhelmed by it. I’m digging a hole in sand. I need help.

Then I went to my other boy, and failed miserably. Today, for some reason, nothing worked. I’ve had great success with him in the past weeks and felt good about my ability to intervene.   But I’ve been realistic….I thought….about the inevitably of a setback.

Until I actually had a setback.

When you’re alone in a room with a kid, six inches away from him, for an hour or so….and your failing to get any connection….despite a real relationship for the past several months….

……..the phrase “setback” doesn’t adequately capture the experience.

Heartbreak is more like it.

He’s agitated and demonstrating compulsive behaviors. I do everything I know (and I actually know this stuff) to move past it.

Nothing.

He does show me one break through; he has become self aware enough to now say to me “I feel bad but I don’t know why”.

Ok. <deep breath>.

We do a variety of things, but he never connects with me today. Usually, he hugs me and chatters and is really fun and funny. Today, he is cold and disconnected. The little bit he does talk to me, it’s sad. “No, I don’t think we’re going trick-or-treating, my family doesn’t do that.” What do you do for fun after school? “I try to download a game, but I can’t”. So then what? “Nothing”.

I’m sure that’s not the whole story, but importantly, at this moment, that’s how he feels the story goes.

I return him to his room and tell his teacher “we didn’t get anywhere. Sorry”.

And as I head downstairs to start the afternoon traffic control routine, I am briefly overwhelmed.

I stop on the landing, by the sad, under-watered plants and rather odd art.

And cry. Just for a minute.

Then I suck it up and go herd kids out to cars and busses.

And smile at every one of them.