Road Rage Bubbling

I'm traditionally an aggressive driver.  I like to get to where I'm going efficiently and expediently.  I get very annoyed when other drivers who don't remember the rules of the road impede my progress.

(as an aside, why is it that drivers who are older and therefore have been driving longer than I typically seem to be the ones who've forgotten the rules?)

In contrast, I will also acknowledge etiquette on the road.  If a driver signals to be let in to a lane, I will back off.  All I ask is the traditional hand-wave in return.

With that being said, there were two instances this week where -- had Henry not been in the car with me -- I may have proverbially dropped the gloves and engaged in some road wars.  The first was in a lane merge, and the other was a lane change on the highway.

In the first, the right lane ends.  Everyone who drives that stretch during rush hour traffic knows that.  And by the body language of the Chevy truck that I passed, he knew it, too.  He just didn't care.  He was going to get in front of everyone.  I skipped past him and closed the space between the car in front of me and myself, while he sped up to keep pace with me.

The body language indicated that he as going to merge right then or run me off the road (by that, I mean "into the lane to my left, other cars be damned").  As everyone in the lane was playing the same game, Red Truck With the Metal Toolbox was boxed out and left about two car lengths behind me, but not before he had opportunity to angrily slam on his horn and flash his highbeams at me.

As we all went about our chosen lanes, I pulled into the right-turn lane and saw him aggressively zoom up behind me and slam his brakes, an angry Chevy logo looming in my rear-view mirror.  I turned and got into the subsequent left-turn lane.  I saw him cut across traffic, turn left into a parking lot to bypass the traffic signal and a defiant middle finger flashed in my direction.  I watched him speed down a residential street, fuming.

The second was nearing a highway junction.  I saw my opening and merged.  The Dodge Ram thought I cut it too close, and expressed his displeasure with highbeams.  Fine.  So I screwed that up.  However, there was a large construction flatbed truck so I pulled back into the lane to the left....just as Dodge Ram was doing the same thing, and therefore cutting him off a second time.  Again, more highbeams.

Now he was mad.  After all, I should have read his mind despite the lack of his turn signals, and the presence of mine.

When I got back into my lane after passing the flatbed truck, I saw out of my peripheral the Ram approach on my left.  He was also edging very close to my door, which meant that he was planning to cut me off.

I think he watches too much NASCAR.

Thus, body language prepared me for his next move, which was indeed to cut me off at what appeared to be a hair's breadth between his back bumper and my left fender.  He tapped his brakes as a fear/intimidation attempt but I was also ready for that and already slowed to increase distance (and I was getting off of M-59 and onto I-75 at that point anyway).  Hillbilly Ram Boy was continuing on M-59, probably swearing to himself.

Had I not had Henry in the car, I may have given in to the self-righteousness and engaged.  Or at the very least, given it some more serious thought.  But that constant presence of a happily babbling kid in the seat behind me kept me in check and kept my perspective.

In that respect, I won.

I Have But Two Faces

"One for the world,
One for God, save me.
I cannot cry for the shoulder cries more..."

(and I cut the lyrics off there because the context falls off the cliff at that point)

These are part of the chorus of "The Poet and the Pendulum" by Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish. The song itself doesn't really apply to this entry, but I wanted to shoehorn this specific snippet into this post, how we put forth two appearances, depending on the situation.

And how one of those appearances just gets exhausting after a time to maintain, but we must.

Henry is, of course, over a year old at this point.  As such, there are certain expectations for a kid of that age, in terms of physical, social, emotional, and mental development.  But with Fragile X or autism or any other developmental disability, the so-called "regular time-tables" have to be thrown out, and improvisation becomes the name of the game.

And with that said, it sometimes becomes difficult to put up the plastic smiles in response to the myriad of "is he crawling?  Is he walking?  Is he talking?"  A few months ago, it might have been "typical" to say "no," and expect that it's just a delay of "each kid is different."  But at some point, certain milestones come and go, and with no visible progress, others grow concerned.

Well, this is something that we already know.  We know that Henry's delayed, and as such, we've already taken steps to get the help that both he and we will need.  But to explain that to others who aren't as intimately familiar with the situation can get tiring.

On the one hand, we want to explain why Henry isn't quite at expected milestones but on the other, we also know that it might be a bit much information to digest at any given time if one isn't prepared for it.  And in a casual, social situation, one is not quite at a sitting-down-on-the-couch-with-a-look-of-genuine-concern moment.

So we play off those questions with a "yeah, he's doing fine" or "yep, not yet, but he'll get there," all the while wondering when our resolve will crack and the facade crumbles.

We know to celebrate and encourage every milestone he does achieve, no matter how seemingly insignificant.  For example, his crawling is starting to get more defined now, as he's gradually alternating his legs rather than exclusively scooting across the floor like a baby sea turtle struggling to reach the ocean.  But his upper body strength isn't quite up to the task yet.

It's hard to avoid comparing to his classmates, who are already walking and have been for months now, by this point in their development.

So we have these two faces.  One to show the world that everything is peachy-keen and totally under control, and the other we hold for ourselves when we have the luxury of letting loose our frustrations and confusion, processes that I know intellectually are natural and necessary....but still hard to reconcile nonetheless.