All Beginnings Are Difficult

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כל �"�"ת�-לות קשות

(All Beginnings Are Difficult)

-Hebrew Proverb

Focus, Gabriel thought, it’s not the end of the world. It’s just that you’re starting high school.

But that’s the problem! his thoughts shouted back at him, like they always did. Thinking was never easy for Gabriel; his mind never stopped talking. Analyzing, thinking, worrying, and whenever he tried to convince himself of one thing, a thousand problems arose from his inner voices. You’ve been homeschooled for two years; how terrifying will it be to actually be in public school again? Remember why you started homeschool in the first place?

Of course he did. Being Gabriel was never easy; his Asperger’s seemed to get worse as time went on, and did anyone warn him how hard middle school would be? Of course not; no one ever warned him. He was expected to go into everything already magically knowing exactly how to behave, how to make friends, how to talk so that he wouldn’t sound like a nerd. No preparation, no warning of how suddenly different sixth-grade would be from fifth, and the bullies lied in wait. Within two months, they started, and they never stopped until he left that school forever.

Those bullies didn’t leave. They’re most likely going to Highley as well.

And does that matter? I made my choice to go to public high school, and I’m going to deal with it.

It was always this way. Every choice, every decision he ever made, he would constantly second guess, trying to both talk himself out of it and keep himself determined.

He quit talking to himself when Michael walked in. He was sure Michael never was insecure about these kinds of things; his twin brother was always the one people said they liked better, the one who always knew what to do. And, of course, he was better at everything. Gabe knew how cliched that sounded, but there were many, many times when the more irrational part of his mind thought exactly that. It just felt so… hard, sometimes, to do anything because he knew that more often than not, Michael would swoop in, suddenly interested in doing that exact same thing, and do it better.

Except for writing, of course. Gabe knew for certain that it was the one thing, his one passion, that Michael couldn’t do. Ever since second grade, when Gabe had made tiny, faux-books based on at least five different movies or shows he had seen, his writing skills had improved. True, his books were still, but they were getting longer. The one he had started and finished over the course of his middle-school years was about twenty thousand words, which seemed like a ton. To the professional writing world, a novel was, at minimum, fifty thousand. It was, at times, and insurmountable obstacle, but with his newest project, Gabe knew that he would finally reach that goal. It was a seriously cool idea, one that he’d gotten from a dream a few weeks ago. Also, it would be the first novel he’d work on that he’d handwrite instead of just type up.

It took a bit of effort to wrench himself out of his own train of thought when Michael asked, “Hey Gabe. How you feeling about tomorrow?”

Mentally, Gabe sighed. Couldn’t Michael tell that he was busy thinking? Of course he couldn’t; Gabe found that other people didn’t think or act the way he did. Most people reveled in conversation, talking to others. Gabe, on the other hand, loathed having to talk with people. It was far, far easier with his family, but with others, especially people he didn’t know, talking to them was torture. He didn’t make friends easily, and at the risk of sounding immensely conceited, those who were able to befriend him were extremely fortunate.

But, of course, Michael was expecting an answer. “Excited and nervous,” he replied, speaking quietly so as not to seem domineering. If Michael felt that the conversation were focused on him, maybe he’d leave Gabe alone. “How about you, Mike?”

“What?” Mike said, “Talk louder; you’re mumbling.”

“I wasn’t mumbling,” Gabe grumbled, but of course, he had purposefully been, “I said I was both excited and nervous, what about you?”

“I honestly have no idea. It’ll definitely be weird, going back to school after two years of homeschool.” His voice turned serious, concerned, “How do you feel about the bullying?”

Shoot, Gabe thought. What to do? Did he actually open up to Mike? Should he feign confidence?

No, better to actually voice his thoughts to somebody. Mike was his closest confidant; he would understand.

“I don’t want to think about it,” he said, and changing his tone appropriately to sound scared. Sympathy was easier to receive if you truly sounded your emotions in your voice, “I don’t know if they’ll even be there or not, but there’s just so many people there. So many people that could make fun of me, leave me alone, just like before.”

“Oh, you’ll be fine,” Mike said, laying out his outfit for the first day tomorrow, “Just be yourself and people will be bound to like you.”

Gabe stood, dumbfounded. But then, didn’t this happen every time, with the entire family. Every single time he voiced his thoughts, his fears, they simply dismissed them. Oh, they would sometimes fake understanding, but the way they said it and their tone completely implied “You’re just wrong, and you need to accept that. Your fears don’t matter because you’re wrong.” Why did he even bother?
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he said, pretending to agree so they could be done with the conversation. Mike seemed to think it was done too, and turned back to figuring out what he’d wear.

Gabriel thought about what he would wear too, but he didn’t make it anywhere near as complicated. Just his best pair of jeans and his favorite shirt, the one that was deep blue and had cool patterns on the front. Nothing special, but then again, Gabriel didn’t really care about what people thought about his clothing. It was rather confusing to meet people who cared that much about what they looked like, the kind of people who actually adhered to the whole “does this dress make my butt look big” kind of stereotype.

The only thing he really cared about with his outfits were their usefulness and their color. The jeans had to be carpenter jeans; that was paramount. Carpenter jeans had those little extra pockets, where he could put things that maybe didn’t need the use of one of the main pockets, and the loop on the left leg, the one that worked perfectly as a sheathe for some of the plastic swords lying around the house. He had three pairs of jeans like that, and he’d wear them one at a time from the moment he and Mom got home from the store. He’d wear the first pair of jeans, and when they got dirty enough to have no vestige of cleanliness in them, or when holes started opening in the knees, he’d throw that pair in the laundry hamper and put on the next pair.

As for the color, all he really cared about was whether it was blue. Sure, Gabe had shirts that weren’t blue, but they were a color that had blue in it, like green or purple. He rarely wore red shirts, or any warm colors; there was something about blue versus other colors that made it the best.

Gabe realized he’d frozen in the act of changing into his pajamas. Mike hadn’t noticed, but then again, Mike didn’t pay attention to Gabe much unless he wanted to talk about something specific. The whole spacing-out thing happened a lot; Gabe would just think about something so much that he would gradually stop doing anything. So many people in middle school had thought he’d been staring at them creepily when really, he’d just been thinking about something. Maybe that was why they’d been so mean to him; they thought he was deliberately being creepy or something like that. Never mind. Best not to think about middle school. There were just too many bad memories.

Too late. His anxiety started up again, and he felt sad, scared. It was just so hard sometimes to be confident at all, to do anything when his thoughts inevitably circled back to his fears.

He saw his iPod sitting on the bathroom counter. It was blue, of course, and had his name engraved on the back; Mom and Dad had given it to him as a Christmas present a year ago. Gabe made sure Michael wasn’t looking, then flicked through his playlists until he found Taylor Swift’s “Ours”. He didn’t want Mike seeing that he liked listening to her music; it was a general consensus among them that her music was for little girls.

So don’t you worry your pretty little mind, she sang, and Gabe sang along in his head, people throw rocks at things that shine, and life makes love look hard.

Those lines always helped; the song was all about not caring what other people thought about you and just being happy. Definitely something he needed to hear when about to start public school again.

Mike finished changing and left the room, and, of course, he left the door open behind him. Gabe was constantly telling him to close the door behind him; how could Gabe change with the door open? Someone could just randomly walk by. It would have been especially awkward if Mom or Mary were the ones who did.

Gabe rushed to close the door. Once it was safely locked, he finished changing. Now that he was alone, he could at least hum along to his music; singing would have been heard, closed door or no. Everyone thought that he didn’t like Taylor Swift, and he didn’t want them to look down on him because he actually did.

There was a knock on the door, and Gabe stopped humming. What was it now? He just needed to finish his song and he’d be out; he never liked pausing in the middle of a song, but he did anyway. Mary was standing there when he opened the door.

“Hey, little brother,” she said “How you feeling?”

“What do you think?” he said. Mary was someone he could talk to. She was kind of like his lifeline; Dad, Mike, even Mom sometimes didn’t listen, they just told him to snap out of it. Gabe never felt that way with Mary; she was the silly, yet loving big sister that Gabe could only wish for. He felt so blessed to have her. “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep much tonight.”

She just nodded. She didn’t say anything to what he said, and that was just fine. Instead, she asked, “You have your clothes picked out?”

“It wasn’t that hard, but my hands were shaking the whole time. I’m just so worried, Mary. How will I figure out where all my classes are? Is there a map I can see? How do we get our schedules?”

“Slow down for a second,” she said, calming him, “Remember, I’ll be there to help you through it. They post a huge lists of all the students’ first class on the wall of the cafeteria, and you’ll get your full schedule in that class.”

He sighed, but it wasn’t a sad kind of sigh. “I’m so glad I’ll have this year with you,” he said.

She smiled. “It’ll only be a year, though, and then I graduate.”

He nodded. “But by then, I’ll have figured it out, and I’ll still have Mike.”
“There you go, that’s the spirit!” She smiled again and hugged him again. “Also, if you’re still scared, you can always pray.”

Some part of him knew she would say that; she was right, but Gabe never felt like he got anything from prayer. Everyone else talked about how safe and happy they felt when they asked God for help, but he never felt that way. What were they talking about? Couldn’t God be more clear than just a “warm, fuzzy feeling”, as Mom had described it? Oh well, he’d pray anyway. He did it every night anyways, so it didn’t interrupt his routine at all.

Gabe started up the stairs to get a drink before bed, but stopped on the landing when he saw Henry sitting at the top. The little dog did that a lot; he was only a year old and hadn’t learned how to walk down stairs yet. Mom must be downstairs putting the littles to bed. Henry just sat there, anxiously waiting for Mom to come back up; she was his favorite person by far. He followed her wherever she went, flopped next to her on the couch, and he slept in her room.

“Hey buddy,” Gabe said, sitting next to Henry at the top of the stairs, “How are you?” He picked the dog up and put him in his lap. It was always nice to cuddle with a soft, fuzzy dog like Henry. Gabe called it “fuzz therapy”, and cuddling always just helped him be happier. When Henry was just laying on a corner of the family room rug, Gabe would sometimes lay down right next to him and nuzzle his face. He got licked a lot, but Gabe was the only one who didn’t really care about that.

He heard steps before he saw Mom coming up the stairs. Henry’s cropped tail started wagging maniacally, poking Gabe in the ribs.

“So were you both waiting for me?” Mom said, smiling.

“Nah,” Gabe replied, “I just got distracted. Henry will do that.”

She nodded, but then her face turned kind of serious. “You all ready for tomorrow?”

Gabe sighed mentally again. It was kind of them to be concerned, but after answering his own mind, Mike, and then Mary, it was getting kind of repetitive. He’d have to hope that Dad wouldn’t ask him the same question.

“Ready as I can be. I talked with Mary, and she really helped.”

“That’s good,” she replied, “But I just want to remind you that any anxiety you feel is perfectly natural. Asperger’s syndrome isn’t always easy to get over.”

He nodded, not wanting to say anything. He hated it when Mom brought it up. I mean, he thought, I know that it’s a part of me, but how am I supposed to get over it or forget about it if she’s constantly talking about it?

She was looking at him expectantly. Oh, right. He put Henry down, stood up, and hugged her. She hugged him back for a bit, then commented, “You know, normally when you hug your mother, you should actually hug her, not lean back.”

Gabe hadn’t even realized he was doing that. It was only slightly, but she was right, he wasn’t hugging her tightly; Gabe was just putting his arms around her, trying to keep his core away from her. Was it some subconscious aversion to closeness? Some kind of mental claustrophobia? Not that it mattered; this was Mom. He had to hug her tightly, but he didn’t want to make it sound like he didn’t want to. He loved Mom, and she deserved a good hug.

Gabe hugged her again, and she laughed. “That’s better. I love you, son.”

“Love you too, Mom.”

He listened to Taylor Swift one more time before going to bed. Michael was, of course, already asleep. Gabe checked the alarm clock twice, just to make absolutely sure that it wasn’t accidentally set for 6:00 pm instead of am. Something like that had happened several years ago in elementary school, and since then, Gabe had never not checked the alarm before going to bed.

He knelt down at the side of his bed and said his nightly prayers, thanking God for all his blessings, and asking to feel comfortable and safe and happy at school the next day, and to not be scared about it. After finishing, he waited for something to happen. The logical part of his mind knew that those kinds of feelings never went away automatically, but he still waited, just to see if it would happen just this once.

He still felt scared, but it didn’t faze him much. He hoped that tomorrow, he’d be content, but for now, all he wanted to do was sleep.