What's True Now?

That was the question the yoga teacher asked us as we lay with closed eyes on the mat this morning, preparing ourselves to begin class. “What’s true now?” she asked. 

Here’s the obvious place for me to begin:

“Do you believe Santa is real, Mom?” We were driving to the bakery to buy bread for dinner yesterday, and Nonna’s favorite tea bags for her, for Christmas. I could barely look in the rearview mirror, trying to avoid Quinn’s eyes which were fixed on me expectantly. “I think the spirit of Santa is very real,” I told her, but she’s no dummy. “That’s not what I asked you…”

After six good years, I’ve suspected that Santa was on his way out, but I thought we might get one more year out of him. In some ways it hasn’t been an easy year for Quinn. She’s been making pointed remarks lately about how she shouldn’t bother asking Santa for any presents because she is likely to be on his “naughty list.” It was a probing statement, I see now, but also a reflection of how she’s been feeling. 

Quinn’s fuse is pretty short. A criticism, a light-hearted joke she takes personally, a crowded room, a worry…any number of things can set her off. The first day back to ski club this year brought probably the worst meltdown we’ve seen to date. So many things, we thought, were working in our favor: good friendships formed last year, with kids who would still be in her group, the return of her beloved coach Sarah, and the addition of two new coaches she has known from our school her whole life. I had to work the night before, but I left clear instructions for Sam: pull out all the gear, try things on, lay out clothes for the morning, get her to bed early. We know the pitfalls by now and we were trying to avoid them. Still, Quinn is a worrier. She worried about whether the friends from last year would still be friends. Her tight fighting clothes made her self-conscious. No doubt she worried about whether she’d still remember how to ski, and be able to keep up. The closer we got to departure time, the more panicky she got. The more panicky she got, the longer it was taking to get out the door, which meant she’d be late, which is another thing that makes Quinn panic. She hates to be the last one to arrive, because then the room is already full, and the swirl of activity is in motion, and she is left frozen on the periphery, unable to enter.

The meltdowns have grown more angry, more violent, more personal. “I hate you,” is not uncommon. “You’re the worst mom/dad/parents ever” is also not uncommon. She screams, pounds the walls, stomps up stairs, slams doors. It is pure rage and I feel an electric panic of my own when I sense one of her fits coming on. Sam and I both do; we are developing PTSD.

The heartbreaking thing is that after it passes, Quinn is left feeling hopeless and ashamed. It takes work to rebuild, for all of us, and Quinn anxiously, sadly, works and works to do the rebuilding, for herself and for us. It makes her feel terrible, and naughty.

At nine Quinn is able to say things like: “I’m sorry I behaved that way toward you, Mom, you didn’t deserve it.” And, “Can you forgive me?” She has such grown up thoughts, such grown up courage to walk into a room, face her parents and say these things. I admire her so much and just wish she could find ways to feel more in control, more open, more okay. 

“I don’t believe in the ‘naughty’ or ‘nice’ lists,” I told her. “I don’t think you are naughty. I think you sometimes say or do things you wish you didn’t, but I don’t think that makes you naughty—it makes you human.” 

Sam managed to get Quinn out the door that morning for ski club; it was a fight all the way, but he did it. And when he got her to the club, our friends stepped in to help. Traudl stepped in and got Quinn in conversation. Sally told Sam she’d be fine and that he should leave. While this went on, I googled “why is my nine year old so full of rage” and “what does anxiety look like in a nine year old.” With that, I started skimming articles about the “fight or flight” response to anxiety. Quinn is no shrinking violet—never has been. If she is going down, she is going to tear the walls down around her as she goes. The more I read, the more I knew we needed help.

This past week Sam and I met with a counselor while Quinn was at school. She had a round bulldog named Maple, a comfortable and welcoming space, and a quick and sincere smile. She seemed to know Quinn within a few minutes of us explaining why we were there. “I’m guessing she’s really smart,” she said. I don’t see it as bragging to admit that she is—Quinn is undeniably smart. She reads constantly, listens keenly, has intuition about people, and their intentions and actions, that is well beyond what you’d expect of a nine year old. She can always put two and two together. She often reads my mind.

The counselor suggested we bring Quinn in, and she seemed confident that she could help Quinn develop strategies to use when her “worry brain” kicks in. She talked about other kids she's worked with, and shared some of the ideas she’d seen work. She talked about one girl who used a code word with her parents, to let them know when she was starting to feel panicky and needed their help. We left there feeling that it was worth a try and, if nothing else, that Quinn would enjoy meeting the round and hilarious bulldog named Maple.

That night Sam went out and Quinn and I went to school to help with a holiday celebration. She  brought a book to read while I helped with dishes. After dinner, there was an a cappella group singing in the student center. I gave Quinn the choice: go over and listen to the music, or go home and have a sleepover in my room and read books. She picked the music, so we ran over to catch up with the group. When we arrived, the room was full and Quinn started to pull back. I pointed to a corner where one of her favorite kids was sitting. I told her we could sit on the floor, out of everyone’s way. She pulled further and further back, until suddenly I turned to look at her and she was gone.

I found her hiding behind a door in an adjoining room. She faced the wall. She wouldn’t tell me what was wrong. She didn’t want to go in; she didn’t want to leave. I tried to keep calm, told her I was going to listen to the music for a while. I checked on her a few more times, but she never relented. Eventually, she asked if we could go home. In the car, I did my best not to dwell on it. “Is your seatbelt on?” I asked. “Are you warm enough?” As we got closer to home, eventually, Quinn offered this, “I’m sorry I was so rude to you, Mom, you didn’t deserve it.” She suggested I bring back her newly purchased ski gear. I told her she didn’t do anything that needed a punishment, but that I hoped she’d tell me what happened. “Sometimes when I walk into a room like that, I just feel so overwhelmed,” she told me. I asked her what she was worried about—what concern kept her from going in. “It’s not that I feel worried exactly, it’s just that it feels so close and I just feel like I need to get out.” At this point I had to stop driving. I turned in my seat as she was starting to cry. “Maybe I could come up with a code for you Mom, to let you know that I’m feeling that way…” 

She had more to say as we finished the drive up our hill. I was amazed, again, by her capacity—to know, to understand, to explain. Most adults I know would have a hard time being so articulate about their feelings, so soon after being in a tough spot. If only we can lengthen the fuse for her, slow the process down before it spins out of control, I think she’ll be okay. 

Kids like Quinn, the counselor told us, experience a pretty significant cognitive leap around this age. Talking with her makes this clear. In this same week, as we signed Christmas cards together after dinner one night, Quinn started telling us about her “life cycle” project at school, and about the pregnant dog that would be having puppies. I’ve been ready and waiting to have the “where the babies come from” conversation whenever necessary, but so far it hasn’t come up. I’ve had “babies come from a place near your leg,” all queued up and ready to go, thanks to my own mother’s artful dodge, but when Quinn explained that the pregnant dog’s litter of puppies would be “wriggling out of her vagina,” it was clear that I’d never get to use that incredible line. “How do you know about babies coming out of vaginas?” I asked her, as Sam bent closer to his cards. “I just know, Mom. And look at poor Dad,” she said, “He’s pretending he can’t hear us, and yet there he is, smiling sheepishly.” She laughed at her own funny observation and we had to too. Along with smart, Quinn is hilariously funny. The next day on the way to school the topic came up again. Still I was incredulous that she was ahead of me, and this time she was incredulous too. “I’m a girl, Mom; I have to know my own body! And besides, where else are they going to come from? They’re not going to come out of your mouth!”

With Quinn, sometimes it is hard to know what’s going to come out of her mouth. Like yesterday, with Santa. “I’m asking you if Santa is real,” she persisted. I found myself laughing nervously and also unable to breathe. “What’s the right answer here?” I asked her. “The truth,” she replied, without hesitation. 

When I found out that Santa wasn’t real, in the fourth grade, I was devastated—embarrassed that I was the only kid in my class who still believed, and sad at the loss of the excitement and joy. And yet, as I think back, I remember all of my annual pictures with Santa: every year I had a giant scab on my face…every year I got so worked up that I got cold sores all over my lips. “Which one of you does this come from?” the counselor asked us. Both of us share her genes.

I tried to size up how Quinn would react when I told her the truth about Santa, so I could at least have one or two seconds of lead time on what would come next. The kids at her school have been circulating the news: the parents are the ones who leave the presents, they wrap them in special paper and put them under the tree in the middle of the night. The parents eat the cookies and write the notes and sign them from Santa. “I don’t care if Santa is real or not real, Mom. Santa isn’t Christmas.” And so I told her, yes, we were the ones who left her presents.

I was crying by then, out of admiration for her intelligence and her composure and her perspective. She is the oldest nine year old I’ve ever met. Meanwhile, she was smiling at me, probably feeling sorry for me and my sentimental nature, as she offered me a Kleenex. Quinn seemed happy to have possession of the truth and curious to hear my explanation for it all. I told her about the article I read when she was nearing Santa age, about the importance of having experiences as a child in which your brain learns to believe in magic—that wiring that will someday be important as you find yourself having to take a leap of faith, maybe stepping into a crowded room, or showing up for the first day of something new, or bringing a baby into the world. Without Santa, the capacity for what is possible might be lost. 

I told her that when she was young, I had worried about lying to her about Santa, and I asked if she was mad that I did. She seemed to think it was funny that the whole topic was so loaded for me, and I asked that she remember this moment, in the car, next to the bakery, when she asked me for the truth and I gave it to her. And I told her that I always would, and I will.

“Did you at least enjoy Santa while he lasted?” I asked. “I love Santa,” she assured me, “but Santa isn’t Christmas, Mom,” she told me again. I asked her then, “Well, what is Christmas?”

“Christmas is family,” she told me. And that, right now, is both magical and true.