My son wanted to go to bed early the other night. Now you wouldn't think that this would be cause for alarm. There are lots of good reasons for him to be tired. Summer break is over. Fourth grade has started. The kids are no longer on a lazy summer schedule. Add the fact that cold germs are flying around, and maybe you have a kid whose immune system is fighting off some annoying but relatively harmless virus. So he's tired. And he asks to go to bed early. Think nothing of it.

Unless you're me, that is. This is An Event Out Of The Ordinary! And whether the Event Out Of The Ordinary is Mark coming home late or Austen going to bed early, these things are Bad (yes, with a capital B). In this case, my money was on leukemia. Either that or some horrible irreversible disease caused by the fact that Austen's diet is so limited.

Ordinarily, I don't share these things with anyone outside of my husband, because the inevitable response (even, to a more limited extent, from Mark, who at least keeps loving me anyway) is: you're crazy, you're so overreacting, he's just tired, and I'm somewhat disturbed by your craziness, so I'll just go stand over here now. Or... If you're so worried about it, you should work harder and do better. Clearly his diet is limited because of your awful laziness and lack of discipline and willpower. People like you are ruining America and are personally responsible for my unhappiness. I demand that you fix this, and if you just [insert long list of advice that hasn't worked yet and/or recommendation to focus solely on this goal to the exclusion of the needs of all other family members], all the world's problems would be solved.

So, it's tiresome, this admitting of strange, secret, niggling fears. It feels like walking a mile carrying a hundred pound weight (which, by the way, wouldn't be so hard if you stayed in better shape, MPJ, so stop complaining). In fact, it's so very tiresome, that I've spent my entire life not telling people (aside from a trusted few) that if my son asks to go to bed early, I secretly think he might have leukemia. And that I might even go so far as to stand next to his bed, biting my bottom lip, my hand hovering over his sleeping head to see if I feel a fever.

Austen is fine, of course. After a few nights of early bedtime, he has been his usual cheerful, energetic self. And I'm fairly certain (well, ok, maybe I will be in a few days) that he doesn't have any life threatening disease at the moment. But I'm also fairly certain that the next time he says his stomach is upset, I'll be biting my lip and furrowing my brows, thinking I may have been wrong last time, but this time...

The one thing I feel I can never be certain of, until the very moment I hit publish, is whether or not sending my whispers of imperfection out along distant electronic tendrils of this universe -- and the relief and recognition and connection and not-aloneness it might bring somewhere -- is worth walking a mile with that damn weight. This summer, it wasn't. But, today, it's back to school time, and unlike my kids, I feel like I have all the energy in the world.

In the dream, I was driving on a highway laid out like silver thread between my home and the nearest big city. My husband was seated next to me, smiling, and I could feel the kids safely at home, laughing with their babysitter. It was just before sunset; the day's dying rays were golden on the water and the softly swaying dry grass as we approached the bridge.

My husband looked at me, and for a split second, I lost focus. I stopped looking at the road, and the car simply drifted serenely off the bridge and started plunging down, down before I knew we were in danger. We fell like Alice down the rabbit hole, falling for so long we seemed to hang suspended in the golden air. I felt like one often does feel in an accident: as if I were seeing everything in slow motion and if only my body would move as fast as my mind, I could do something to prevent the inevitable moment looming ahead.  But the water waited unyielding below us. And I knew we were going to die at the end of that long fall. I had killed both of us in that momentary flicker of attention. My children were going to grow up without parents.  I just hoped they would be asleep when the babysitter called and called the cell phones that would ring on without answer, wondering why we were so late.

I turned to Mark to say I was sorry for killing him; sorry that he was paying the price for my inattention. And he lookedsaidthought, "We all make mistakes, sometimes very bad ones." But he didn't blame me. He held out his hand and we sat, holding hands and falling, waiting for the impact that never came, as I woke with a start. I sat up, shivering, as the images flashed on my waking mind in the cold gray dawn, and I assigned the dream the moral: "I am feeling guilty for not paying enough attention, not being present enough, for my kids."

Irrational as I know it is, I have been terrified of driving that highway ever since. The dream was so vivid, that when I enter the stretch of road leading to the bridge I can see my dream self plunging off the side. If I hit an uneven stretch of pavement and the car jolts or swerves slightly, I feel my heart racing, my body taut with anxiety. I fear that at any minute, I might lose focus, lose control and lose everything. It only takes an instant to make a mistake from which there is no recovery.

I was driving that highway today, with my kids unusually occupied with drawing in the back seat, when I started to feel numb with panic thinking about the bridge. My kids' lives depended on me. Other drivers lives depended on me. And am I really to be trusted? My hand could slip on the steering wheel. Or jerk. Or freeze. What if I have a seizure? What if I fall asleep? What if I get a brain aneurysm? What if I suddenly become diabetic right here in the car and my blood sugar becomes unstable and I pass out? What if I panic so much I black out?

Of course, the only real problem was the panic, which was stubbornly refused to respond to either rational thought, meditation techniques or faith. I eyed the traffic, wondering where it might be safe to pull off and breathe, grumbling to myself, "I so need to talk to my doctor about anxiety meds. This is ridiculous. I can't function. What is really going on here? This isn't just about a stupid dream."

And my mind, as if relieved to have finally been pressed with a direct question, brought up an image of my destination: a park that formed a green oasis in the barren concrete, steel and glass of the city. We were meeting friends there, visiting from out of town. But eight years ago, on the day he hit bottom, my husband went on a different kind of visit there: a picnic to that park with one of his... What's the word for it? Lovers seems too intimate, mistresses too urbane, and acting out partners, too sterile. In any case, they met. The picnic was the appetizer, the foreplay, the prelude, the rising anticipation. Rolling the food on their tongues, then wiping their lips, packing the remains and walking, toward her house, her bed. I can see the way his hand slipped down the small of her back as she pulled him close under a tree for a kiss. Right there in the park. For anyone to see.

We were going to drive past the street to her old house on the way to the park. We were driving on the highway Mark had traveled, secretly, back and forth, from her house to our own. Was this panic -- over this highway, over loss, over lack of control, over mistakes from which there is no recovery -- not about the dream but a twisted response to past trauma? Was the dream, perhaps, not really about quite what I thought it was either? Those thoughts washed through me like water, like crystal clear liquid truth, taking the panic and the looming shadow of future annihilation away with them, leaving me staring at an old scar, still sometimes tender to the touch.

A few months ago, Mark and I took the kids to a "sensory friendly" movie showing.  Autistic individuals, and others with sensory processing difficulties, can find a typical movie going experience overwhelming.  Movies are loud.  Theaters are dark and often crowded.  The screen is huge and the images on it are flickering and fast paced.  There are previews and commercials before the show that switch rapidly from one theme to another, while we wait impatiently for what we actually came to see.  Then when the movie does start, its story and situations are designed to evoke strong emotional responses: to scare or thrill or amaze us.  And did I mention they're LOUD?

Most of us go to the movies to be a little overwhelmed.  But for some people, all of that can be too much.  So, at sensory friendly showings, there are no previews.  The lights are dim, but the theater is not dark.  And the sound is turned down.  And not only that, it's ok to sing or talk or to get up and walk around, dance or jump if it all gets to be too much anyway.

At the showing we went to, some kids got up and paced the aisles.  Some rocked in their seats.  Some grunted or chirped.  My son commented on the movie at full voice.  (Whispering is only for secrets.)  And we all had a fun day out doing something different while nobody stared.  Nobody glared.  Nobody shifted uncomfortably in their seats and made little "hem" noises in their throats.  The air didn't buzz with electric hostility.  And nobody had to worry that, at any moment, it might.

I don't know about the other parents in that theater, but I felt like I'd been able to put down a hundred pound weight.  The kids and young adults in that theater could all be themselves, and we all understood.  No one said anything or did anything, but there was a palpable sense of acceptance in the air.  It hung there, invisible but enveloping, like the drowsy smell of honeysuckle on a warm afternoon.  What a relief.  Which made me realize just how guarded I am and how much weight, how much fear and tension and worry, I carry every day.

This past weekend, I went to a convention for my 12 Step group.  Hundreds of sex addicts and their partners or family members gathered in hotel conference rooms and ballrooms.  There were meetings and workshops and outings.  There were speakers who shared their experience, strength and hope.  At each banquet iced tea was served instead of alcohol.  No one gossiped about the latest infidelity scandal in the media.  People openly shared their pain and their weaknesses and their gratitude.  And all weekend long, I had nothing to do but connect with my Higher Power in a group of people who was supporting me in doing just that.  All weekend long, I felt I had nothing to worry about and nothing to fear.

Again that love and acceptance enveloped me.  Again that hundred pound weight dropped off my shoulders. Again the relief washed over me.  And again I realized just how guarded I am and how much weight, how much fear and tension and worry, I carry every day.

On the last day of the convention, I wept with gratitude for the gift of having been there.  (If you were one of the lovely ladies sitting around a hotel banquet table with me on Monday morning at breakfast, yes, that was me crying and smiling at you all crazy.) We were asked on that last day if we had picked up any burdens that we wanted to leave behind, and I couldn't think of any.  All I could think was that I needed to try not to reshoulder the burdens I'd set down when I entered.

Most parents hear it at one time or another.  Some variation on the universal theme of parent awfulness: "I hate you. I wish you were dead. I don't like you.  I'm not going to be your child anymore.  I want a new Mommy/Daddy.  You're the worst parent ever."  These pronouncements are usually inspired by something truly terrible we've done, like forbid our child from diving head first off a playstructure onto concrete.  (Actually, a lot of people married to addicts (for whom the rest of this story may also resonate) hear that kind of thing too, and usually for the same reasons.)  And those words can hurt, even when we know they're just a passing storm of anger and frustration.

But yesterday, when Austen screamed, "I don't love you!" it made me feel, well, loved.

Austen is autistic, and it comforts him when the little details of his world are neatly in place.  One of these details is the need to have all words printed neatly in capital block letters; no lower case letters and no script allowed.  If one of us should write something using any lettering that is offensive to Austen's discriminating eye, he will not rest until he has fixed it for us.  Grocery lists can be found with each item crossed out and correctly rewritten above.  Signatures on birthday cards are blacked out and bear neatly printed versions of the name instead.  If you want to keep a document safe from Austen's pen, you should generally keep it out of his sight.

I've recently been reading over some old journals and letters while doing some 12 Step work, and my daughter Janie has enjoyed having me read to her about what I used to do when I was a child.  Yesterday, I was reading to Janie when (and you can see where this is going, I'm certain) Austen, mistakenly thought to be safely occupied with something else, noticed that (shockingly) I didn't not print every item in my childhood diary in capital block letters.  And this was an outrage.  A crime.  An atrocity.  Austen wanted to fix that journal for me right away.

Of course, the answer to that was no.  No, you cannot cross out every word in my precious junior high diary and rewrite it.  I took the journal and locked it up safely in my room.  At which point Austen told me to please walk away and not look at him.  Nothing to see here. Move along.  He'd just be over here trying to pick the lock.  Just ignore him.

So, being the sharp and totally onto-him mother that I am, rather than walking away, I stopped and said, "Buddy, I really can't let you have that diary.  I wrote it when I was very young and it's the only one I have.  It's a part of who I was and who I am, and it's very special and important to me.  If you cross out the words, you'll be damaging it, and I'll be sad and angry and hurt. I'll feel like you would feel if I wrecked up your electronics collection, which I know is really special and important to you."

And that's when the screaming started.  "No!  You must let me have it!  Promise?  You have to let me destroy it!"

"No, I can't do that, buddy."

"Yes, you can!"

Austen's anger usually comes from anxiety, so I took a guess as to what he might be anxious about and tried to reassure him.  "I love you no matter what.  I know I said I would be angry if you damaged something that is important to me, but I would still love you, always and always."

"Well, I don't love you!" he shouted.

"Do you feel that way because you're angry at me?" I asked, trying to help him label his emotions.

"No," he said, through tears of frustration, "Because I have to destroy your diary, and it will hurt you.  And if I love you, I don't want to hurt you.  But if I don't love you, it's ok.  And I really need to destroy it, because it's WRONG in lower case!  So, I don't love you!"

Oh.  Wow.  I'd really misunderstood and misjudged: the level of his need, the level of his empathy the level of his emotion.  But all I could think right then was that this was the best "I don't love you" I'd ever received.

I've been working through the 12 Steps again, more slowly this time than my last time through.  This week, I worked through an exercise where I looked at patterns of compulsive behavior in my life and I was struck (again) by how powerfully my life is dominated by fear and by how much I react from a place of fear.

I've engaged in everything from shoplifting to underage drinking to unprotected sex out of fear that I wouldn't fit in, that I wouldn't be liked, that I would be rejected.  I overeat out of fear.  I stay in relationships and run from relationships out of fear.  I don't exercise out of fear.  I deprive myself of sleep out of fear.  I spend money out of fear.  I even read novels out of fear.

Sometimes I don't know the fear is there unless I look for it; it's just a dark guiding hand behind my actions.  Sometimes, the fear grips me, so tightly and unreasonably that it's impossible to see anything else.  But it is the first type of fear — the one I don't recognize, yet allow to direct me — that I find is most dangerous for me.

Through my recovery work, I've begun to recognize fear more readily and to start replacing it with faith.  Working this Step again has reminded me that this is a journey and a process during which I need to remain vigilant.  Fear is constantly by my side, taking the wheel whenever it has the chance.

"Honey?" Mark has been putting the kids to sleep.  I thought he'd fallen asleep with them, but now he pops his head into the living room. "Austen says his stomach hurts and he can't get to sleep.  Can you come take a look and see what you think?  I'm not sure if it's serious or not, and I'm pretty wiped out.  I could use a second opinion and some help."

It's 11 p.m. and Austen should be asleep by now, but it's also Halloween and he's had a few stimulating and exciting days of leading (for an eight-year-old) a wild life of relatively late nights and parties.  I suspect he's overtired.

"What's up, buddy?"  Austen's in the bathroom, moaning.

"I'm scared I'm going to throw up!"  This is a big fear of Austen's, and mine; we both hate to vomit.

"Do you feel like you're going to throw up now?"

"Well...  no..."

"Does your tummy hurt right now?"

"No, but it was hurting.  And I'm scared it's going to hurt again!"

"I think you're tired, buddy.  Sometimes that can make your stomach hurt.  Let's go lie down."

"But I'm too scared.  What if I throw up in my sleep?"

"You won't throw up in your sleep.  If you have to throw up, your body will get so uncomfortable, it will wake up."

"Really?"

"Really."

He walks into the bedroom and lies down.

"Now my stomach hurts!" he cries.

"Where does it hurt?"  He puts his hand right in the middle of his stomach.  It seems like stomach cramps coming and going, which could mean he's coming down with a stomach flu.  Or could mean he's just tired and anxious.  But even if he is sick, exhaustion and anxiety aren't helping.  I exchange glances with Mark and try to clue him in to this thought process without saying words like "sick" and "stomach virus" which will make Austen more anxious.

But Austen is thinking the words anyway.  "I don't want to be sick!" he screams, "What if I throw up?  I don't want to throw up!"

"Do you feel like you need to throw up?"

"No, but I'm still scared!"

"I think," I venture, "that you being scared is part of what's making your tummy hurt.  It's making all the muscles tight.  And sometimes being tired makes people queasy.  It makes me queasy.  And you've been up late and had some exciting days because of Halloween.  So we need to relax the muscles and make them looser so you can sleep.  Then you'll feel better."

"But how?  How can I relax?  I can't!" he sobs.

"Remember when you were little and I used to count you to sleep?"  If I were to sing to Austen, you'd think I was killing him — the screams would send the neighbors off to call Child Protective Services — but he has always found strings of numbers soothing.  So where other mothers would ease their children off to sleep with lullabies, I would softly whisper numbers.  I'd count by ones or twos or threes.  Or recite all the powers of two up into the millions.  Or square numbers.  On and on into the night.  Austen knew them all by heart, but I don't have his memory and had to write the more complex sequences out on a piece of paper and read them.

Austen nods.

"Just close your eyes, and listen to the counting.  Ok, buddy?"

"Ok."

"1, 2, 3, 4, 5..."  I hold my hand on his stomach, radiating warmth. "6, 7, 8..." He closes his eyes.  His stomach isn't rumbling, and he's relaxing, which makes me think it probably is just tiredness.  I keep counting past one hundred.  His eyelids are still flickering but his breathing is softer.  I get all the way up to 175 before I'm certain he's asleep.  A few minutes later he half opens his eyes and mumbles, "It worked!"  And then falls asleep again.

The next morning, when he wakes up, I ask, "How's your stomach feeling?"

"Great!" he says with a smile, "you counted to 150 and it worked."

Sometimes a kiss can fix a boo boo.  Sometimes a lullaby (or a lullaby of sorts) can soothe a child to sleep.  And at times like those, I just love this mama gig.

Eight years ago, in spite of the fact that we were both exhausted by caring for our infant son, I found that my husband Mark was staying up later and later at night. He had to be up at 5 a.m. to get ready for work, yet I would wake some nights at 2 or 3 or 4 a.m. to my son, wailing for a feeding or a diaper change, and find Mark's side of the bed empty, cold, untouched. Then I'd glance to the bedroom door and see the eerie blue glow of the computer screen in the next room creeping in. And I knew he was looking at porn. Sometimes I'd ask him to come to bed, sometimes I'd just stew and wait. And in the morning, I'd wonder, "Should I be worried about this? If he is, is it a big deal? Is this ok? Is it normal?"

Those seemed like legitimate questions at the time. He wouldn't stay up every night. And sometimes he was actually doing some work, or starting off doing some work. (Hey, I'm codependent. I spied, so I know.) I knew he was looking at some porn, but I didn't have a problem with porn. It was one of those things guys did, right? And I even viewed it myself. But this seemed like a lot. Did he have a problem? Or was I crazy and overreacting? (I knew he fell on the side of crazy and overreacting. But if he was crazy then his evaluation of the situation couldn't be trusted.) I simply didn't trust myself or my own feelings. I wanted some neutral third party to say where the line should be drawn, to define exactly what was normal, what was ok, what was worrisome, what was a problem.

I was thinking about all this as I read an article about how his porn use is the equivalent of her pedicures, a way to relax and blow off steam. The author of the piece asked questions like "should you be worried?" and tried to reassure partners that, even if porn use bothers them, it may not be a "big deal." They may be overreacting. All of which made me want to punch the author in the nose and then send him to a therapist who could teach him not to invalidate people's feelings. (What? Are you saying I still have control issues? No worries, I'll lovingly detach and let him crash and burn and learn on his own.)

The reason I got fussy when I read that, is because it took me some time in recovery to realize that there is no "should" when it comes to feelings. And that lesson is still raw. It's something that I am apt to forget as I fall back into fretting over whether or not I "should" be upset or angry or worried. I'll wonder who is right and who is wrong and who is crazy and who is sane and what's normal and grind myself to bits hoping that the world will arbitrate in my favor.

But here's the thing: a problem is a problem. If something worries me, it's worrisome to me. If my husband was staying up at night looking at porn, and it was bothering me, it didn't matter if he was an addict or not; it was bothering me! And it was ok for me to be bothered by it even if it wasn't a problem for him. If my feelings about his porn use were interfering with our relationship, then there was a problem with porn use in our relationship. Likewise, if I'm spending money on spa vacations and my husband is getting anxious and irritable about that, if he's feeling threatened because I'm spending time having my pedicurist massage my feet rather than him, then my spa time is an issue in our relationship, even if pedicures are perfectly healthy and relaxing for me and he "shouldn't" be upset. It doesn't matter how he or I "should" feel, it only matters how we do feel.

Thankfully, we've found recovery programs and therapists that have helped us deal with our problems in a way that has acknowledged and respected each of our feelings, rather than telling us that the way to solve the problem was to convince us that we should stop having those feelings.

"Worry Brain, your mama's so ugly, she makes onions cry!" I found myself saying after I got off the phone with my husband.  I had to hang up the phone because I'd burst into tears, and now I was trying to beat back the anxiety that was consuming me.  I'd read a book on helping children cope with anxiety that suggested we learn to mock the part of our brain that produces those irrational, anxious thoughts.  As a feminist, sometimes I worry that I shouldn't use ugly mama jokes on it, but then I remind myself that's probably just my Worry Brain trying to get out of having its mama called ugly.

The company Mark works for is on shaky ground.  There have been layoffs and the people he knows that have been let go have had a hard time finding new jobs.  But I wasn't worried about that.  I was worried because he had a job interview.  For a really good job.  That pays a lot more than what he makes currently.  Working in an industry he's really interested in.  And the interview went well.  Crazy to be worried about that?  The job is (gasp!) in another state.  We'd have to move.  And the thought of that level of change grips me with anxiety.

I started whirring right into a panicked overdrive, "Fine.  I'll just tell him he can go, but I'm staying here with the kids.  I can't believe he'd pick a job over us!  And if we're not there, he'll probably just go on an incredible acting out spree.  He'll pretend he's not married and have sex all over some new town.  But I can't move, can I?  It took a year for Austen to be able to sleep through the night the last time we moved, and we stayed in the same area.  We'd have to find new 12 Step meetings and new doctors and new friends and a whole new set of resources for Austen.  And for crying out loud, we are a mixed race family and I look like a crazy bohemian.  We can't just move anywhere.  People will burn crosses on our lawn and the neighbors will tear the Darwin fish off my car and kill us.  We're safe here.  Everything is familiar here.  Everything is under control here."

That's when I brought out the big guns and called my Worry Brain's mama ugly.  (I mean she had to be ugly.  She was a big slimy brain, right?)  Mark still has a job.  He hasn't lost his job.  He hasn't been offered a new job.  Even if he were offered the job, we'd have time to discuss it and decide what's right for our family.  No need to try to soothe my anxiety by jumping on the computer and spend the next two hours doing Internet research on school districts a thousand miles away (although I was sorely tempted to), not when I can use my prodigious recovery skills to stay in the moment and tell myself ugly mama jokes instead.

I woke up this morning, muscles clenched like a fist and throat tight with anxiety, wanting to grab my son and never let him go. I crept to where he was sleeping and ran my fingers through his curls, reassuring myself he was there and safe. He'd actually been better than usual in this morning's version of my recurring nightmare; at least in this dream, I'd found him in the end.

I've had some variation on this nightmare — in which I lose one or both of my children — countless times. In a nightmare theme a few weeks ago, I'd happily, if absent-mindedly, voiced my assent to my 6-year-old daughter's trip to the mall with a friend of hers on Christmas day. Dream-hours later, when she wasn't home yet, I realized I didn't know the friend's name, address or phone number and there were no stores open on Christmas. She was gone, taken, and it was my fault.

Last night, my husband was the bad guy for a change instead of the usual villain: me. In my dream, he'd planned to go out to run some errands alone, but Austen begged to come, so the two of them went off together, but only Mark returned home, having forgotten he'd brought Austen with him. We rushed back to find him, with my dream mind running through the very real-life possibilities that Austen would not be able to communicate his needs and get help. We found Austen and he burst into tears mingled with a steady stream of anxious, repetitive shouts and questions with no answers, very much like what I'd expect of the real Austen under stress. Then the chime of my alarm woke me, still tight and panicky, and truly wanting to punch my husband, who was sleeping innocently beside me, totally unaware of what he'd been doing in my dream.

I realized, as time passed and I calmed down, that on top of the fear that I will lose my children, the sheer panic that they could be hurt or lost or worse — a fear any parent understands — there extends through all of these nightmares a different kind of fear. In each dream, at some point, I always think, "Oh, no. I'm not going to be able to find this child by myself. I have to ask someone — the store clerk, a police officer, a neighbor — for help. But if I tell them I lost my child, they are not going to want to help me. They are going to blame and judge me. They are going to tell me I didn't work hard enough and do well enough. They are going to tell me that it's my fault. And even if we find my child, they are going to think that my husband and I are such bad parents that they take our children away forever anyway." It's not just the realization that my child is missing that causes the nightmares to be so traumatic, it's the realization that my child is missing, that I might be blamed and that the problem is so big, I can't fix it by myself.

And I recognize that isolation and loneliness, that self—blame and guilt. I recognize those fears: The fear of asking for help. The fear that mistakes or weaknesses or imperfections will cause me to lose everything I love. The fear that I'm not working hard enough. The fear of judgment and of blame, and not just in and of themselves, but as agents of loss. I recognize in all of these the deep roots of addiction and codependency still present in my mind, gripping me when I sleep.

Last Monday I walked through the grocery store feeling like a weight was crushing my chest, a tight lump in my throat the only thing between me and tears. And part of me wanted to self-indulgently sit there on the linoleum floor under the flicker fluorescent lights and cry, much the same way that I'll both fear and crave the relief of vomiting during a wave of nausea. For the second time this year, a babysitter had dumped us because she found my son Austen's autistic behavior too difficult to handle.

The grocery store I was in wasn't the one closest to my home. It was an additional twenty minutes further away, because the one closest to my house was all out of strawberry Yoplait, one of the three foods Austen will eat (and not just eat reliably, but eat at all). I'd had a clerk check the stockroom and then check with the store in the next town before making the drive to the store in which I now clutched my cart wanting to cry.

It had been the sitter's first attempt at watching the kids, and I'd been satisfied that everything went just fine.  She had experience working with autistic children in the past, and both children seemed to take to her from the start.  There seemed to have been a few rough patches, but it didn't strike me that the kids or the sitter had a particularly difficult night and the sitter, even at the end of the evening, seemed interested in learning more about how to work with Austen.  But this morning I'd been informed that she did not want to come back because the job was too difficult.

Too difficult?  Is that what my life is?  Here I was having driven an extra twenty minutes each way to the grocery store because my son's eating issues are so severe, and I have a babysitter who has worked with autistic children before seeming to say to me (through her actions) that my son is worse than any of them.  Am I in another one of those situations, like living with an addict, where we start to think that everyone secretly drives raging drunk or tries to pick up prostitutes or does drugs with their kids because that's all we see, where the bizarre and unacceptable become normal?

I remembered the babysitter asking about whether Austen's behavior was better at school than at home and wondering, "Was she saying it was my fault?  Did she think if I'd worked harder, if I were smarter, if I were more skilled, if I set up a different structure, if I were stricter, if I trained him better, everything would be different?  (I'll work harder, I'll do better, please love me!)  Does she think I'm a bad mom?  But the beloved sitter she was replacing used to tell me what great work I was doing and how blessed our family was..."

And I actually started to tally the sitters up: "Two quit this year, but three started and love us.  One stayed on from last year (the one who had just moved, whose eyes would glow with enthusiasm when she talked about our family) and in past years no one had ever quit; they got pregnant or moved or started school... But maybe things are getting worse?  Oh, this isn't helping!  Am I in denial?  Is my life crazy or just life?  Am I bad or am I good or am I... (damn!) looking to other people to tell me what is real and whether I'm doing the right thing for my son."

It didn't help that tightness in my chest or that longing for tears to dissipate to know that I was looking to other people (rather than myself and my God) for definition and approval.  I still desperately wanted to know what I couldn't know: that I was doing the "right" things, that my son would be ok in the way I (not God) wanted him to be ok, that he'd be able to get along in the world on his own someday.  But it did help me to see that, wherever I am on my journey as a parent, the answer is not going to come from taking a tally of what babysitters think of my family, but in feeling confident in myself and my higher power.