Shane has been talking since he was very young about having a career in film. When he was a preschooler, he took videos non-stop with a Little Tikes camera. This lasted for years. He would point the camera at his toys, and then he would talk – barely loud enough for the microphone to pick up his voice, let alone his toddler-esque words.
So we got him a better camera. Inadvertently, I discovered that he also had a knack for taking still photos – I mean, he really has a knack for it. I wanted desperately to be a photographer when I was younger. I do not have a knack for it.
Years went by. Shane entered one photography competition – the county fair – and won THE Chairman’s Choice Award for his age group. He continued to make films for YouTube and Instagram. And he kept saying he was interested in a career in film.
So, at some point in October, Shane and I started planning a trip to see some colleges in California. Well, really, I started planning and Shane acted disinterested.
“You have to go to school in California if you really want to be in film,” I said – 6,000 times.
“Okay,” Shane would say. But he didn’t do any research on colleges. He stopped taking video classes in school (mostly thanks to the school) and he pretty much stopped making videos, too.
He started attending the local film club, Tryka, where high schoolers at all levels of filmmaking could talk about film. He seemed to like it, but he sure didn’t love it.
“Are you still interested in film?” I asked – many times.
“Yeah,” he said. “I don’t really want to be a director or anything, but film is better than any of the other choices of careers.”
“Son, do you have any real passion for working in film? I mean, is it something you really want to do with your life? California is a long way away, and that’s really where you have to be if you want a career in film.”
“I don’t have a passion for anything,” he said. “But I would rather work in film than anything else I can think of.”
Ah-ha! I thought. He just can’t think of anything else!
California is a long way away. We are still going to visit some colleges known for their film degrees, and I’m happy to see the Californian sights. But I’m not thrilled about sending my not-so-passionate baby 3,000 miles away so that he can study something he doesn’t even like.
“Would you like to read a cool book?” I asked him. “It really helped me when I couldn’t figure out what to do with my life, and they wrote one specifically for teenagers. It’s called, ‘What Color is Your Parachute?‘”
“No.”
Shane is not a fan of reading whole books, even though he used to love them. He is definitely from the 21st century, short-attention-span crowd.
So I made a booklet for him. I hopped online and researched occupations Shane might enjoy, and careers that he might find enticing. I found a website called Job Monkey that listed occupations he probably never knew existed – and then I plunked in information about the related majors and college programs for the various careers.
I printed it out for him.
And then it sat there, in a pile, for two weeks.
I’m beginning to think that the problem is not “passion for film” as much as just “finding a passion.”
Shane – always – prefers to just sit. He is a poster child for Newton’s first law.
Things That Never Occurred to Me About Dylan’s Homecoming:
- Dylan would continue to be independent, even though I still occasionally think he is seven.
- Shane would be left alone for hours at a time, because Dylan wanted to spend some of his “home” time out with friends.
- Even on Thanksgiving, when I thought I would be spending the whole day with Dylan, he spent a lot of time socializing with other people at our Thanksgiving dinner.
- Three days goes by way, way, way too fast.
- Having him here made me miss him more.
The good news, of course, is that Dylan is going back to school, taking some exams, and coming home again. We’ll see him soon! But this holiday has been strange, fun, new, old and wonderful – and I’m so glad he’s here with us now.
Even if he does still sleep until noon.
I haven’t allowed myself to miss Dylan … too much. I’ve concentrated on his successes at college – and there have been a bunch of those! And I’ve concentrated on Shane, and his successes, too. It’s been a pretty productive few months!
But today, Dylan is coming home for the first time since he left for college. He hasn’t been here since mid-August and he’s only staying for Thanksgiving.
But I have been out of my mind with excitement.
I have checked and re-checked his room. Nothing has happened in there since we cleaned it and changed the sheets right after he left. I’ve put some mail on his bed. But for the most part, it looks exactly like it did when he left.
I’ve been looking at it anyway. Expectantly.
I am making sure the fridge and the freezer have all the appropriate items. Mostly, he likes ice cream. We have LOTS of ice cream! I’m sure he has access to plenty of ice cream at college. But I wouldn’t want him to do without!
We also have frozen pizzas – lots and lots of frozen pizzas. Did I mention that he’s coming for Thanksgiving, when we won’t even be home, and that he’s only staying for three days?
I think about how lame everything is going to look to him. He’s going to see the house in a way he’s never seen it before: from the outside. He’s going to realize that it’s dirty and that we never clean up certain piles that just live, in piles, under desks and on tables. He’s going to realize that the house has a smell – a home smell – and that his dorm room has a completely different smell – and he’ll probably think that smell is okay. And he’ll realize that he has to cook his own food here, or that someone will cook, and that his bed is giant and comfortable and he doesn’t have to climb up to get into it, like he does at college.
He’ll want to spend all of his time in his studio, making music, because he doesn’t have all that space at school. And I’ll want him to spend his time with me, so I can just sit and grin at him, soaking in his presence. Neither of us will get our way entirely.
Most of all, he’ll feel two things: stifled and relaxed. Simultaneously. He’ll remember how young he was, when he left, and he’ll want to get away from that immediately. And then he’ll remember how nice it is here, having people who love him doing the smothering.
And I will remember that I felt that way, too, and that it turned out okay – with my parents now being two of my favorite people in the whole wide world.
And I will remember that they let me have my space when I needed it. I will try to let Dylan have space. I already called him and asked if he would go with us to get a Christmas tree. This may have been too much to ask, but I couldn’t bear the thought of doing it without him.
And then, after we get the tree, he will go back to college. And I will miss him more than ever. But he’ll come home again in a few weeks, and I am already looking forward to that. Even though I know that our house will be lame. Our stuff will be lame. I will be the lamest of all.
And it will be okay. It will be okay. It will all be okay.
When Shane started therapy six months ago for his OCD, he was a basket case. I was a basket case. None of us knew what to do, or how to help him.
He couldn’t finish his homework because he couldn’t read a text book. He was obsessed with the idea that he was doing something wrong. He worried about hurting other people, making them sick, breaking the law, and not knowing what laws he was breaking.
We got him a therapist who took our insurance. This turned out to be helpful – but not as helpful as we hoped.
Two months later, Shane was in worse condition than ever. He couldn’t function at night without “confessing” things he thought he’d done wrong. He couldn’t enjoy his summer because he was constantly worried about breaking laws and doing things that might hurt people.
Worst of all, he wasn’t doing anything wrong.
We’d never heard of Responsibility OCD.
But when his therapist admitted that he was out of ideas, and suggested that Shane might need medication, we started looking for – almost accidentally – a new therapist.
We scoured the earth for someone who could listen to Shane, understand him, and prescribe medication. We ended up with a prescription that still sits on our shelf.
But by the beginning of September, we found someone who really understood Shane. And he understood OCD. He knew about Responsibility OCD – and he knew exactly how to treat it.
So he told Shane what to do to take care of himself – and Shane, being Shane, did what he needed to do.
After only two months with the new therapist, Shane “graduated.” The therapist said that Shane now knew how to tell the difference between his obsessions and his thoughts. And best of all, he was no longer stuck when he had an obsessive thought; he knew exactly what to do to move forward.
So Shane has been released from therapy and is moving forward, no longer stuck, and happy.
I am so proud of him, of his bravery, of his ability to tackle his issues head-on and succeed. And I feel so blessed to have found the right therapist for him so quickly.
But most of all, I am happy for Shane, because all I ever wanted is for him to be happy.
Dylan was awake and ready to register for classes a full hour before registration started. This, in itself, was impressive. He texted me while we both anxiously awaited the opening bell.
(There was no bell, really. That was just a figure of speech.)
Dylan’s schedule had been set, reset, revamped, and reset again, resulting in – we hoped – a handful of necessary credits that Dylan was hoping to actually enjoy. Best of all, he was prepping for a semester of sleeping right through any 8 a.m. classes that might be offered.
“While you’re waiting, you should look through the course catalog and just make sure there are no prerequisites for your classes,” I said.
“What’s a course catalog?” he said. (I had obviously done too much.)
A few minutes later he said, “I need the CRN numbers for these classes.”
“What’s a CRN?” I asked. (I had obviously not done enough.)
We got the CRN numbers; he listed them and got ready to hit “submit.”
But five minutes after registration began, Dylan texted me. “I got into all of my classes except Copyright Law,” he said. “That one was full. So I put in Intro to Music History and it gave me an error message. Now I don’t know what I’m going to take and all of the Copyright Law classes are full.”
Dylan and I worked together on this. It took about 20 minutes and a rehashing of the requirements for graduation, but when I realized that Public Relations was a Social Sciences course, I was elated.
“There’s one spot left in Public Relations!” I nearly squealed. “Get it! It’s the same time as Copyright Law and it will fit in perfectly!”
“What’s public relations?” Dylan asked.
“Just get it and I’ll tell you after!” I was panicked that he would be shut out of that one, too. It was like buying concert tickets for Mariah Carey or trying to win an auction on eBay for something utterly unique.
Two seconds went by.
“I’m in,” he said.
“Yay! That’s great!”
“Yeah, I have a schedule.”
“You have a schedule.” After only a month of playing around with the course catalog, and after accessing the wrong one and fixing the issue, and after Dylan’s hopping from one course to another as they filled up before his very eyes… Dylan finally had a schedule.
“So are you sure I need to take Public Relations?”
“I’m sure it’s one of the best options in the list of Social Sciences,” I said – having also convinced him along the way that Sociology was not a bad “-ology” to take.
“Okay,” he said. “So what is it?”
“It’s something everyone uses and it will be good to take no matter what career you have,” I started. And then, since my dad was a superstar in public relations for about 50 years, I explained to Dylan – to the best of my ability – the meaning of “public relations.”
And then I exhaled for the first time in three days.
On the day before Dylan registered for spring classes, my choices for courses had grown to a ten-page, color-coded document with a variety of back-up choices. Since he’s a freshman, Dylan registered near the end of the week-long registration – and many of his favorite classes were filling.
“You’re going to need four sciences,” I told him, “and two maths.”
“Why do I have to take so much science?” Dylan whined.
“Because you’re getting a Bachelor of Science degree, remember?”
“Oh, right. And why am I doing that?”
“Because you didn’t want to take any foreign language classes.”
Dylan sighed. Over the course of the week, we talked several times. Twelve hours before registration, we worked together to find a schedule that would not only help him graduate, but it would make him less anxious.
“I don’t want to take anything that starts before convo hour,” he said. (Convo hour is at 10 a.m.)
Finally, with my ten-page document scrawled and re-done several times, and a new document called “schedule choices” – and then a final document called “FINAL FINAL FINAL I HOPE GOODNIGHT” … I was ready to go to bed.
And Dylan was ready to go back and work on his paper, which he needed to complete by midnight.
It was after 10:00, but I thought, Gee, I should just make a quick list of all the classes he needs for the B.S. degree and all the classes he needs for his major, so he’ll have it for next fall’s registration.
So I hopped online and started downloading information, and highlighting which courses he’d already taken… when suddenly, with an unpleasant lurching of my stomach, I saw something I hadn’t seen before.
At the top of the course catalog, on the upper right-hand side, was a little box with a drop-down menu that said:
Undergraduate Catalog 2017-2018 [ARCHIVED CATALOG]
I almost vomited.
Apparently I had – somehow – bookmarked the archived catalog from two years ago on my computer, and had been “helping” Dylan by determining his course requirements based on a catalog that was substantially different than the current catalog.
It was 11:00, my time, when I called Dylan who – at least – had another hour to start making changes to his course schedule. Meanwhile, it was way past my bedtime.
“You only need two sciences now,” I told him. “So that’s good. And to be honest, the classes you’re going to be taking now are way better!”
Then we spent another hour throwing together choices that, hopefully, would fix the problems I had created by reading the wrong catalog.
Eventually, Dylan had a schedule he liked – with all of his classes starting at 11:00 or later – and I could go to bed. Which I did.
I literally dreamed about course registration. People were in my way, when I was trying to register. Some woman kept blocking me from the table as I was trying to get to the computer. I woke up several times during the night, only to fall asleep and have another dream about being unable to register for classes.
I’m really not in college anymore, but that didn’t stop my anxiety.
I got almost no sleep, worrying about Dylan’s classes 700 miles away. And when I woke up, the real fun started.
While we were going through Dylan’s schedule to see what classes he might want to take, I did a little extra research.
I always like to do a little extra research.
His introductory class for his major was being taught by two different professors, and none of those classes seemed to be filling up. So I thought, I’ll just see what their bio’s look like. Maybe one will sound better than the other.
Poor Professor Schreiber never stood a chance.
The other professor’s name popped up all over the internet.
I clicked on a link that said, “Psychedelic pop singer Mark Volman …” and discovered that Mark Volman is one of the founding members of The Turtles. They sang his song, “Happy Together.” Coincidentally, Shane recently started singing this song on a regular basis.
But if that weren’t enough, Mark Volman also played in Frank Zappa’s band, Mothers of Invention, for ten years.
I started texting Dylan the way folks used to call people until the phone rang “off the hook.”
YOU CAN’T MISS THIS OPPORTUNITY! I scream-texted. YOU HAVE TO TAKE THIS CLASS WITH THIS GUY!!!!!
Eventually, Dylan – barely knowing the word “Zappa” but totally understanding the allure – signed up to take Mark Volman’s class.
After that, I read his entire bio on the Belmont website. He’s a Grammy-award-winning artist – but not for the Turtles or Zappa. He wrote children’s music! He sang with Linda Ronstadt and Bruce Springsteen! He is still touring, doing 50 shows a year! This man has done so much with his life, I wonder how he finds time to teach.
But he’s not just teaching; he’s the coordinator of the program in which Dylan is majoring.
Certainly, college is expensive. But gee whiz. There is nowhere else in the world where this guy could teach. He is music, and that’s what he’s going to teach to my music-loving son.
I love this college. I love this man. I love Dylan for landing in the right place. I love God for getting him there.
Amen.
Six months after my original request for a meeting to discuss Shane’s OCD accommodations, we met again – this time to determine what we could put on the 504, since Shane really only had one issue.
His issue was reading.
Over the summer, Shane was agonizingly stuck so often while trying to read – a fiction book of his choosing – that I’d volunteered to read to him, or to singlehandedly excuse him from the summer homework. Shane simply couldn’t read. The OCD was making it impossible.
Fortunately, though, with a new therapist and Shane’s hard work in therapy, Shane was having way less trouble in November than he’d had in July. In fact, he was hardly having any trouble at all.
“Sometimes I get distracted,” he said. “But I don’t really get stuck anymore.”
“Let’s see what your teachers have to say,” Shane’s counselor said, and she picked up teacher referrals from every one of his teachers. Then she read aloud:
Shane is a great student. He puts 100% effort into all of his work. He has maintained an A for the entire quarter. Shane is polite, hardworking, and cooperative. His writing is very creative and his reading comprehension is excellent.
He sits in the front row with strong students and diligently stays on task. He is not very chatty and will proactively ask for help.
Shane is always attentive in class. He does not get distracted by other students.
Shane does not need any of the accommodations listed in his plan. He is fully independent and can perform wonderfully without them.
Shane’s counselor finally put down the pile of papers and looked up.
“You’re a rock star, Shane,” she said.
Shane, who regularly shows no emotion whatsoever, had just a tiny eye flinch – something that I have come to recognize as pride. His mouth even twitched, and I swear he almost smiled.
And deservingly so. For page after page, teachers had raved about Shane’s incredible ability to do exactly what was expected of him, and to excel both creatively and intellectually. With the quarter ending, we also knew that Shane got six A’s – including an A in his first-ever AP class – and one very high B.
My worries about OCD were over.
The counselor, whose job it is to make sure that Shane stays successful, told both of us that we would reconvene in a year to reevaluate Shane’s 504.
“Is there anything you think you’ll need then?” she asked him.
“Not really,” Shane said. “Sometimes I get distracted when I’m reading but I think I’m doing okay.”
He’s doing okay.
“How about a flash pass?” I suggested. “If you are ever too distracted to read, and you just need to get up and move around, you can walk to the counseling office and just sit until you’re ready to go back to class.”
“We don’t even need to put that on the 504 plan,” said the counselor. “We can just give him one. Do you think that would help you?”
“I could try it,” Shane said.
So Shane got a flash pass which, most likely, he’ll never use. The meeting was over in 15 minutes. And I got the feeling that we really weren’t going to need another meeting in the future.
But I sure did enjoy this one.
After questioning the therapist about the connection between hoarding and OCD, he called me into his office at the end of Shane’s session.
“There are different reasons for hoarding,” he said. “Sometimes it’s about needing to hang onto things just in case they’re needed later. Other times it’s more about a sentimental attachment. And sometimes it’s just about things being where they are, and feeling like that’s just where they go.”
He said that he thought Shane might have a few of those things going on, but not all of them, and that he thought Shane was willing to work on them. Then he gave Shane some homework to do.
“Maybe you could give away just a very few things every day for a week,” he said. “How many things do you think you can find?”
“I don’t know,” said Shane.
“Do you think you can find three? Three things a day?”
“I guess,” he said.
So Shane’s homework was to find three things a day, for a week, with which he could part.
One night, I got a pen, a pair of free sunglasses from the pediatric dentist, and a finger-sized rubber chicken. Another night, I got two rubber bracelets and a bookmark. More sunglasses and pens piled up. Some old CDs appeared. One day, I got some very old clothes.
After the homework had been in full swing for awhile, Shane said, “I’ve realized that I don’t have that much stuff that I want to give away. I just have a lot of stuff that needs to be in the garbage.”
I agreed.
But he didn’t actually want to put things in the garbage. Shane just wanted to point out that he knew that some of his stuff is garbage.
It’s been a few weeks now, and I still get the garbage. It just keeps coming – in teeny, tiny piles of three. The things sit next to the steps, where I collect them, and put them in a more appropriate place.
Shane’s room looks exactly the same.
Dylan scheduled a meeting with his advisor, a precursor for spring semester course registration.
Since I have so little to do for myself – what with working nearly full-time, doing the best I can with Shane and raising a puppy – I started looking at class options for Dylan.
I looked, and I looked, and I looked. Days went by. I kept looking. I checked the website for what he needs for his major, and what he needs for general education. I thought about Dylan’s likes and dislikes. I considered the number of credit hours, and looked into how many – and how few – he can take without changing tuition.
After four days, I had a list of 28 color-coded course selections with five alternate one-credit courses, complete with days and times of each class and a sample schedule that I thought he should take. I even threw in the course literally titled, “Special Interest: Bob Dylan,” because I think he needs to know more about his namesake.
And of course, I didn’t want to share any of this with Dylan. He was at college, doing his own thing, keeping up with the classes he’s currently taking, and doing nothing on his own behalf to get ready for spring.
In fact, Dylan was in the midst of a four-day fall break with nothing to do, and he still didn’t find any time to look at the website and see about his options.
Meanwhile, I kept tweaking my version of his schedule. I texted Dylan every day and asked him to call me when he had an idea of what he wanted to take. And every day, Dylan didn’t call.
But eventually, something came up and Dylan had to call. So he did.
“So let’s talk about classes!” I said with excitement, pulling up my list.
“I knew you were going to say that,” Dylan said. “I knew you would want to talk about classes and I absolutely HATE looking at classes.”
I couldn’t believe it. I’d been having so much fun finding classes for Dylan! How could he not enjoy – even revel – choosing his course selections?
“I HATE IT,” he said. Dylan doesn’t hate much, but apparently choosing classes is a thing he hates.
“Well,” I said. “I sure had a lot of fun with it.” I started asking him questions, to see if he’d done anything at all.
He hadn’t.
So I talked about the things I knew, about his requirements for graduation, about what’s left that he’ll want to get out of the way – and what he needs to take to pursue the major he chose.
Eventually, I just caved.
“Why don’t I just send you the list of the classes I found? They are all classes you need, and you can decide what you want to do.”
“That would be great,” he said. So I did – and as far as I know, he never even looked at a course catalog before choosing his spring semester classes.
I know what I did was wrong. I know, in my heart, that I have done him a disservice by cutting through all the crap for him. I sincerely wonder how he will ever get along in the world – and how he will graduate from college – if he doesn’t know exactly what he needs to do so.
And yet, I had so much fun! And I don’t have to take a single class! It’s like making travel arrangements for someone else: I get to do all the planning, but I don’t have to spend any of my own money!
I know it was wrong. But I really enjoyed it.
