My Sad Bad Mad List

All week long I’ve been saying that our feelings are mentionable and manageable. But I almost forgot what Zion, 8yrs, was carrying.
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Zion’s brain, like that of many special needs kiddos, is often a chaotic swirl where everything feels too loud, all the edges are too sharp, and the next moment is always too unpredictable. I almost forgot that his routine at school, with his teachers, in the same Special Ed. room, and with the same therapists, is what calms him and lets him know everything will be okay. Knowing things will be the same every single Monday, Tuesday, etc., is not just life-giving to him, but essential in feeling like life won’t gobble him up whole.
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On top of that, Zion had a complicated surgery two weeks ago. So he’s been in pain and healing, while physically needing to limit activity and have no contact with others because of his high risk.
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I almost forgot all this, until he destroyed a collection of items in his room yesterday and melted down, reminding me that his brain was going absolutely haywire. I took a deep breath and stopped, saying, “I bet this has been a really strange time. I bet it’s been hard for you to understand what’s happening..” He crumbled in my arms weeping, needing his weighted blanket and for me to wrap around him and calm him enough so that he could finally speak. When he did, I asked him what he was feeling and told him I’d write it down so that we could see it and face it together.
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Today I made “My list of things during the covid-19 era that make me feel sad/mad/bad.” There were 20 things that needed to get out of my body and onto the page. There were F-words, letdowns, annoyances, things that made me sad, angry, scared and hurt. But after I wrote them, just like Zion, I could breathe a little easier and the knots in my tangled-up mind unraveled a bit looser.
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Zion folded his list and slept with it last night. I asked him if I could share it with my friends so they could make their own, and he said, “Oh yeah! that’s a great idea!” I don’t know a more earnest and pure-hearted soul. And I think those are the ones we should be learning from right now. So this is your invitation🧡 Zion and I send you our love.