I feel like a failure. I feel like a fraud. I feel like it's all my fault. I second guess everything.
Before Sammy was first diagnosed I thought about what I was doing wrong. What was different about`what I did with Sammy vs. the older boys? Oh I worked, that must be it. I convinced myself that having a job, even though they came with me, must have been the root of it. I worked on a farm (oh how I loved that job) and the kids came too. I didn't leave them and that was awesome but being at work meant I couldn't attend to them the way I would have at home. I was convinced I must have damaged him somehow. When I stopped working I poured myself into him and still I was met by a wall. For years I blamed me, and some of me still does. A lot of me actually. It's better some days than others. Sort of like standing on the beach in the sand, if you get to close to the water the waves sweep the sand away. That wave is my grief over the life my children have, it sometimes comes out of nowhere, like a tsunami. Other times it's like the rising tide on a flat beach that overtakes you when you aren't looking.
The part that is so hard right now is I work now too. I worked when Nate was little too. I work nights. I like my job but I miss my kids. I hate leaving my family to be with someone else's children. It seems so backwards. I feel guilty every time I leave. It hollows me out inside every time. My house is never clean enough. My tone is never calm enough and the laundry is never done.I wonder if that is why Nate is such a handful. I wonder if that is why some people see him as a spoiled brat. It must all be my fault. Am I setting Grace up for the same exact thing in a few years. Am I too indulgent to make up for leaving? Am I trying to make up for Sammy having autism?
I don't hold anyone else to my standard, just me. I just want one day where the demons of self doubt don't chase me. Just. One. Day