Believing

RS has school volleyball tryouts this week and for the last 2 weeks she’s been so negative and down in herself. She’s saying things like ” I won’t make the team.” ” I’m not that good.” Then we had a situation with a mean girl at school telling her that she goes to so many volleyball camps because she sucks and needs the help. ( Which is not the case!)

We have been watching a lot of Olympic volleyball this last week and noticed that beach player April Ross was wearing a Giving Keys necklace.

(These are old keys engraved with inspirational words. ) RS is a big fan of April Ross and Kerry Walsh- Jennings so I told her that if she stops saying all of these negative things and makes varsity I would buy her a Giving Keys necklace. She seemed to really like this idea and the negativity stopped.

On Saturday, while in Nordstrom I see the Giving Keys display and find a gold one with “believe” engraved in it. I tear up standing there. I knew I had to get this one for her- I needed her to always believe in herself. Sunday night, the night before tryouts, while eating dinner she tells me she has looked at the website for this brand and found one and decided she wants the gold one with the word “strength” on it. I am excited because, I feel like this is the time to give her the one I bought even though it’s before try outs and not after she makes varsity.

I give her the “believe” necklace and she opens it and tells me “I don’t like it. You can take it back”. I have no chance to explain why I chose that one because I know I have to get out of there before I start crying. So I calmly say okay and go back to doing the dishes. Of course, I am devastated. All I wanted was for her to know that we always believe in her, thinking this might provide some sort of comfort or help calm her nerves tomorrow when I can’t be there to give her a pep talk.

I am so mad at myself for getting upset about this. I should have known better. I should have waited until after try outs like we discussed. I should have just taken it back and gotten the one she wanted instead. I should have known to have done everything differently than I did. Did I honestly think she would be so thrilled with it, understand why I got it and why I chose then to give it to her? Of course she wouldn’t, so why I am still so upset about this? Why is it 4:00am and I am awake, typing this with tears in my eyes again? I should know better- its my job to know better!

The last few weeks have been so relatively, smooth that it was almost as if we had shown Aspergers who was boss here. Shown it that we had this under control, we could totally handle this! I was lulled into a false sense of security thinking this one time was going to be different. Its never going to be different, I know that and need to accept it.

I know the way RS handled seems bratty, and the emotional part of my brain thinks so, too, but the logical part of my brain knows that she can’t help it. I caught her off guard, didn’t explain myself properly, gave it to her earlier than we had discussed. I didn’t follow the rules and to someone who sees the world as black and white and doesn’t like surprises – I am the one in the wrong.

I thought I was doing so much better at thinking everything through and thinking more on her terms. While I may have let my guard down and let Aspergers sucker punch me again, I am going to continue to believe that I am starting to get the hang of this. Even if it didn’t feel like it yesterday.

***** Update******

This morning RS came into my room before school asking if her necklace looked okay with her outfit! We had a quick little talk about why I chose that one and like a true pre-teen she rolled her eyes at me when I told her that I believed she could do anything she set her mind to. Success!