December 9 – Party Prompt: Party. What social gathering rocked your socks off in 2010? Describe the people, music, food, drink, clothes, shenanigans. (Author: Shauna Reid)
My first thought when I read this prompt was: Party? This year? I wasn't feeling very social. I didn't do the whole party thing. Just didn't want to, don't know why.
And then I decided I needed to write something better than that, so I vanished into my archives and my flickr tags. I saw photos of parties: my birthday, Katherine's birthday, graduation gatherings, friend's celebrations, cast parties. Still, nothing did it until, the one I tagged "Party" on flickr.
I found it there.
A party Samuel attended for a classmate. At Pump It Up, a kids party place.
Samuel is nine and I can count on one hand the parties he has been invited to attend.
When he was very little he didn't want to attend parties, they upset him too much.
Now he craves invitations.
By the time I was nine I had had more parties than I could count on one hand. I practically filled two hands.
Samuel, one of my life loves, is on the Autism Spectrum. This has made life different for him. Before I knew about high functioning autism and aspergers syndrome, I thought autism came in one form: anti-social aloneness, non-verbal with the occasional rain-man like odd bird thrown in for Hollywood effect.
Parties are a huge deal for Samuel. He wants to be included, longs to be included and often times is at a loss as to how to be included.
When I was invited to a party as a child, it was like "oh, another party, pass the salt."
When Samuel is invited to a party, it is a favored conversation topic for a week.
I gladly sit in an enormous room filled with huge inflatable jumpers and children, unruly and parents, all sitting on edge. I watched our kids play and to "outsiders" they look like everyone else. With the more moderate forms of autism, you have to get closer to "see" it. Its one of the blessings and one of the curses. Our kids are wise enough to know they are different. With each other, they are in sanctuary. Samuel goes to his General Ed classroom at a public school and the other kids are protective of him, but no one seeks him out as a best buddy. He is a loner who doesn't want to be alone.
At his after school, social skills program everyone "gets" him. He doesn't have to explain himself. He can be himself completely.
My current conundrum is bridging the two. As a Mom, I want him to be invited even to parties of the "normal" kids, the non-spectrum kids.
I want him to be comfortable negotiating both worlds.
It is getting better. He is in a church youth group, he plays Y basketball, he plays saxophone in the beginner band.
One of these days he will be invited to one of those parties. We will all rejoice.
= = = = = =
follow me on twitter: @juliejordanscott
Recent Comments