the chaos of the last … three years / seven years / decade ~ has transmogrified my perspective
I used to believe conversations were linear. I used to believe that I was obliged to act consistent with my past behavior, to help others understand me. I used to therefore lock myself into a feedback loop.
For example, when my baby's father left abruptly when our son was 14 days old, my world completely changed. While I was adjusting to 100 percent care of another human, my own body had failed during the birth process and I was dealing with a massive thrombosis in my left calf. The work I was doing on a contract basis was shifting to full-time employee status once the medical insurance coverage was handled by my private insurance.
While adjusting to the new routine of single-mother with a career, I was handling the collapse of the marriage. My ex-husband had left me for a woman he met dancing salsa/bachata/merengue, so there was that drama that I barely had time to care about. There was familial concern/support; my ex-husband had come from the Dominican Republic on a fiancé visa five years earlier - so I was also dealing with his mother and grandmother visiting while he kept slipping out to his new girlfriend.
So here's the crux of "feeling obliged to public opinion"--> Socially and professionally, I was embarrassed. I did not want pity. I was focused on my darling infant son, to whom I turned my complete attention.
This tiny infant, I projected -- how would he process this devastation of abandonment?
My mother said, "Amy, we love him. He has you and I - and we love him completely. everyone has some big challenge to contend with - this will be HIS
And with that, his fate was sealed.
I didn't know him yet, as I looked into his tiny face and filmed him constantly. We got up every morning at 4:45 to spend time together before taking him to the day care in the basement of my downtown Cincinnati office building. I paid nearly half my salary for the privilege of ease dropping him off in the morning, nursing him twice and then going home together. Those were halcyon days, untinged with any of the pressures that might have consumed me - the clot, financial pressure, my ex-husband, my larger family, my professional status, my actual work.
Even though I had completely invested all my concern and effort toward career until I became pregnant, my work suffered now that I had a new focus.
When we went home every afternoon by 4 p.m., we then had six or seven hours to play together. We took walks, painted, cooked together, sang and danced and learned about each other and the world. Once he fell asleep, I needed at least an hour or two of alone time. I was in great shape, physically (except for the clot).
The soundtrack to our lives in those days were from Plaza Sesamo, Sesame Street and Tarzan (in Spanish), which we played over and over.The story of the abandoned baby who grew up in the jungle relying on his primate family was constant. While we drove to work/daycare every morning, we listened to Libro de la Selva (Jungle Book in Spanish). Outside of the house, he was curious about ponies and horses. He told me later that his fascination was that they were so massive and yet so gentle. When he showed a lot of interest in growing up "wild," I told him stories of the wild child depicted by Francois Truffaut. When he was nearly three, I met a man who loved me so passionately that he was willing to support me in any way I wanted. We left the Midwest for the Sonoran desert and I worked from home so that we could participate in an unschooling movement.
Being outdoors between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. daily, playing at the park with other wild children, seeing young children walking on sidewalks without parents nearby, my son asked "Are they WILD?" His favorite movie when he was four became George of the Jungle. It was January, 2002. He was four and I made him a faux-leopard loincloth which he then wore to the park every Thursday, running around with his friends.
My feral son emerged.
