A Place of Rest

 

Last night I was organizing Alex’s bedroom, a task I had put off all summer, knowing that it would take a great deal of time and patience to sort through all his things. I also knew that I would have to go through all of his possessions when he was busily engaged in something else so that he wouldn’t distract me from sorting his things into three piles: keep, give away, and throw away. In the past, I was rarely able to put his belongings into the latter two piles because he wanted to keep everything that was in his room. To be honest, I had a great fear that if I threw away something of his, he would instinctively know what I had put in the trash and insist that he needed that item immediately. Moreover, I knew that he would be angry with me for having disposed of it. For most children, this might be a forgotten toy; for Alex, this might be an instruction manual for a gadget that had been long gone or a seemingly random list of numbers he had constructed and only he knew their significance. Typically, cleaning Alex’s room meant simply finding places for all his things and never really purging all the extraneous.

Yesterday’s end-of-summer cleaning, however, was different. As I carted out garbage bags full of his former belongings I felt certain he no longer needed, Alex calmly watched me and seemed pleased that his room was taking a more organized form. By removing dilapidated and outdated books, his bookshelves have room for those books he truly treasures, and he can now find them quickly because they are no longer stacked in piles on top of his desk. I did make one consolation in my determined effort to rid his room of mess: knowing his love for his world almanacs, I kept all of them, despite their torn covers and missing pages, and stacked them together on a shelf, which made Alex happy.

When I cleaned out his closet, I noticed something else that showed a clear sign of progress. In the past, Alex refused to wear any clothes that had words or logos on them. In previous blog entries, I have mentioned that he inexplicably referred to these as “bad imagine clothes.” Now, his closet contains sweatshirts with his favorite sports teams emblazoned on the fronts, and many of his newest t-shirts, which he helped select, have words on them. In fact, his current favorite t-shirt is one he found at Kohl’s that depicts some of the characters from Sesame Street, a favorite show from his childhood, with the saying, “Everything I needed to know I learned on the street.” Although I suspect he doesn’t really get the joke, he thinks it’s funny to wear a shirt with Elmo, Big Bird, and Cookie Monster at his age.

Part of my motivation to overhaul Alex’s room came from his recent request to get new bedding. For the past several years, he has preferred solid-colored sheets and a NASCAR comforter. Last week, he suddenly decided that he wanted Major League Baseball themed bedding instead. As he and I shopped online for a new comforter and sheets, he studied his options, and after asking me if one he liked was too expensive (and being reassured that the price was reasonable), he decisively chose the one he liked best. This process also showed signs of progress in that he came up with an idea totally on his own, patiently and carefully weighed his options, and then made a decision without relying upon me to make it for him.

As I finished the dreaded job of tackling his room, I realized that the cleaning of Alex’s room took on symbolic meaning, as well. Throwing away items he had ruined by throwing them or writing on them during his destructive phase was cathartic for me, a way of getting rid of bad memories. Moreover, I realized that fixing up this place where Alex rests comes when we have arrived at our own time of rest after a time of turmoil. No longer do I fear Alex’s wrath for moving or getting rid of his things. The improvements in his behavior along with his progress in making independent decisions and being more flexible about his surroundings and what he wears makes us embrace the positive changes and feel more hopeful about his future. For a time, we lived in constant fear of making Alex mad, and we did everything we could to make him happy. Now we live in peace knowing that he is happy and doesn’t need our constant coddling to make him that way. Whether this positive shift has come with time, therapy, healing, or a combination, we don’t know, but we do know that we are thankful that we can clear away the struggles of the past and enjoy the contentment we find in this blessed time of rest.

“The Lord replied, ‘…I will give you rest—everything will be fine for you.” Exodus 33:14