Finally Finding My Sea Legs

I tend to be a bit of a pessimist but when something good and fortuitous happens, I'll call it.

I get to meet a LOT of people as a fitness instructor. People from all walks of life come to the classes. If I ate pork, I could so get a great deal on a half pig or something. I had a lively discussion about double negatives with a retired writer. I probably know more than I want to about incontinence from two palliative care nurses.

Thankfully, I met up with a psychologist and mother of a gifted child in one of my classes. I shared with her some frustrations with Middle Child (barely scratched the surface, really, because one instructor's advice to stay as private as possible resonated). Anyway, over the last couple of days, she's helped me get some serious balls rolling to get Middle Child attended to.

And the timing couldn't have been better. He got picked on again yesterday. And, again, he took all the blame because he didn't want to fink on his "friends".

I got the phone call from his teacher the minute I walked in the door from the gym, still on an endorphin high. "I found in his possession a piece of paper that read, "(Middle Child) is better than (Joe Blow)', and '(Joe Blow) sucks.' I called him out on his inappropriate language as it followed me walking in on him telling another boy, holding a tennis ball in his hand, 'I'm aiming for your balls.'"

I hope I came across as a little calmer than I really was. I asked what happened before these experiences. "Well, as you know, he's pretty tight-lipped." So I made her aware, actually reminding her, that Middle Child is being picked on and has been since kindergarten. He is a square peg trying desperately to fit into a round hole. Perhaps if she got to know him, gave him the benefit of the doubt, she could assess that in him and use her education and teaching experience to make his school days less like a fricking gulag.

Mind you, Middle Child has lost much respect for her as a representative of fairness and peace after she publicly accused him of stealing from the school's third world charity project.

What hurts the most is seeing him so unhappy. Coming in second is that he's accused me of not fighting hard enough for him. Why does that kill me? Because maybe he's right.