The Change in Fall

I used to love September. Back to school. Crisp fall days. Leaves changing colors, swirling and drifting to the ground. Football games. Hot chocolate. Fires in the Fireplace. Boots and jackets. I. Loved. Fall. Everything fall. Even rainy, stormy, thunderous nights.

But the past several years have changed me. Fall has become brutal. Every year, September slithers into our house like a serpent, stealing the calm, leaving an enormous amount of angst in its wake. And I watch helplessly as my sweet, joyous, fun-filled boy turns into a shell of anxiety. 

Every year we try to get ahead of it. We try to prepare for it. We work with him on what is coming, how to cope with it. And although it is getting better (slowly, incrementally), it is still BRUTAL. B. R. U. T. A. L. And I am out of ideas. I don't know how to make it better for him. At this point all we can do is power through. Get up every morning (hoping we've gotten some sleep), put one foot in front of the other and power through like the bulldozer he desperately loves.

Its not school. He loves school, asks to go to school all summer. I think the only reason we survive September is because of school. The consistency, the routine. The teachers, his classmates and friends. These all help, even as they too take a toll on his body. Working hard for hours at school is taxing after a summer of running, jumping, playing, swimming... Although school is not the reason for the anxiety, it does add to his inability to mitigate it. 

The cause of his anxiety falls squarely on the shoulders of the change in seasons. The days getting shorter, the weather getting cooler, the clouds rolling in. Its now dark before bedtime. He does not like the dark. It seems to accentuate his already acute hearing. And every little sound triggers anxiety in his body already tense and hyper alert. I cannot tell you how many times an evening I am asked "what's that noise?" It's the refrigerator, or the dishwasher, or the dryer. It's a car outside, a jet passing overhead, the wind in the trees. It's the furnace kicking on for the first time since summer, the ice maker releasing ice cubes, Daddy working in the shop, the floor boards creaking. Noises he didn't even notice during the summer. Now they can cause a meltdown.

The other night as I was putting him to bed he kept saying "no red, no red!" I had no idea what he was talking about. What red? Red what? "Red in the window" he said. "No red in the window." Red in the window? It took a few minutes, but then we realized he'd seen brake lights from a passing car shining in his window. Add one more trigger to the ever growing list.

Fall means occasional rains, which means (at least in his mind) that there might be thunder. And thunder terrifies him. I try, unsuccessfully, to reassure him as he stands at the windows, talking to the clouds, whispering, pleading "no thunder, no thunder", his whole body stiff with tension. I cannot provide the comfort he so desperately needs.

Some days he cries for hours, literally hours. Inconsolable. Little things that haven't bothered him in years can set him off. If I leave the house he cries the whole time I'm gone. He doesn't wander more than 2 feet from me. Even though (at least from my perspective) I cannot provide comfort; he seeks me out, needs to be near me. I am housebound. And helpless. I want so badly to make it better for him. To assure him that it is alright. And nothing I do or say seems to make it any better. Just time. Time for him to get accustomed to the darkness, the coolness, the clouds. 

He does eventually adjust. But in the midst of the angst, it feels like it will go on forever. So we will continue to bulldoze through September. And perhaps sometime in the near future I can fall in love with October. Pumpkin patches and chili. Trick or treating and bobbing for apples. October may become my new favorite month.