On my terms

 

One gets used to many things that are broken or that you could improve. Take the back door to my house, for example. It’s made of wood and it’s very hard to open. You have to pull on it really hard, with both hands. Shutting it is almost impossible. Also, the lock broke a decade ago, so it only locks from the inside.

 

I mean, it’s not a big deal. You got used to the fact that the door is broken, and we’ve been saying for years that we need to get it fixed, but then we never get around to it. Maybe it’s laziness, or maybe we just don’t think about it until we have to use it. 

 

Another example: Luca’s desk drawer. At every little move we make it opens by itself, as if there were a ghost next to it who thinks it’s a funny trick (it’s not). We tried to fix it, but nothing worked, it’s been open for about three years.

 

Lately, Dan and I go to Becket with Luca on Thursdays. Dan saved up a bunch of vacation days and, instead of losing them, he decided to take Fridays off for two months. Sofia and Emma prefer to stay in Cambridge: Emma works at a Mexican restaurant and rather than coming, Sofia claims to have a lot of (fake) things to do in Cambridge.

 

Dan and I have noticed that Luca becomes particularly obsessive when we go to Becket. He prefers hitting me to hitting Dan, usually. We’re trying to figure out why this happens: maybe it’s because the house is much smaller than the one in Cambridge, and his room is on the same floor as the living area, so he doesn’t even have to make the big effort to do come down the stairs. Or maybe he just gets bored. The first thing he says in the morning after waking up (at around 4AM, mind you), is “Out to the car” “Car ride!” He insists until one of us showers him, gets him dressed, makes him breakfast and takes him on a ride along the nice roads that lead way up into the hills, or through little New England villages. It’s all very nice, but at this point we kind of hate them all.

 

When we arrive on a Thursday afternoon, by Saturday sharing the house with Luca becomes a nightmare. He’s even more bored, even more aggressive towards me. He never leaves me alone: a prime example is him deciding to sit on my lap, all 145 pounds of him, while I was peeing. (The lock on the Becket bathroom door is also broken. It’s been like that for years now). I’m telling you this as it’s a very practical way to describe how close he wants to be to me every minute of every day. He constantly touches and pulls my hair, he hits my head with his fist, so hard that I feel dizzy, he tries to put his hands under my shirt, he tears my glasses off my face, he asks for a hug from me about 9,270,860 times a day. For the first 100 times you think it’s cute, but after that I get a bit annoyed.

 

Last Saturday, we got back home after a long car ride and a nice walk. Dan was exhausted, because he wakes up every morning so early with Luca, so he went down for a nap. I was starting to organize things for dinner and Luca was constantly on top of me. Constantly. Like the back door in Cambridge, like the desk drawer in Luca’s room, we had almost gotten used to this ongoing tyranny. We were (are) exhausted, and started to think this would be our new normal.

 

But that Saturday afternoon, I decided enough was enough. I was going to end this torture once for all.  I told Luca: “You know what, my sweet Mister Shmoo? You are all done from now on. You are no longer allowed to decide when and where to touch me. From now it’s on MY terms!”. I said all that. He looked at me, pulled my hair and started laughing.

 

I knew what my strategy would be: “You touch me, I take away your iPad”, I announced with a stern voice. Predictably, he touched me. I took the iPad away from him, I turned it off and I told him to make his bed. He doesn’t really know how to make it, despite the many, many times the home therapists worked on it. But he still remembers a few tricks, so with my help, he made his bed. I gave him his iPad back. After three minutes, he came back to me and I said: “You touch me, I take the iPad away!”. So, he touched me. I did the same thing: I took away his iPad and made him do a chore.

 

So, in half an hour he:

folded his laundry,

set the table, swept the kitchen floor,

put away his clean clothes, stirred the zucchini I was cooking for          dinner,

emptied the trash can in his room.

All of this with my help, of course.

 

After three or four hours of this new trick, he stopped touching me. “If you touch me, I’ll take your iPad away!”, I would say over and over again, every time he came near me, and he would pull his arm back immediately. 

 

This went on for a week: every time he touched me, he would have to renounce his iPad and do a chore. It worked like magic. I thought to myself, my life has changed! My scalp is no longer sore from having my hair pulled, I don’t have any more scratches on my arms, no more punches. Nothing. He asks me to hug him a bit less, too. 

 

It’s very hard to continue this routine, especially in Cambridge, where I have a million things going on at the same time. But at least I know I can do something if it gets too bad again. It has been an incredibly difficult time with Luca. It’s hard to be patient, especially now that I am mourning the loss of my mother. It’s hard for me to have to repeat the same things over and over again without bursting into tears. It’s hard for us, and it must be excruciating for Luca, who can’t control his obsessions. We’ll see how it goes.

 

In the meantime, I am going to call someone to fix that back door.