It was because I was alone and angry and sad on my island, and I didn’t even know how I got there.
Jack is thirteen now. I am forty-two. I have been living with his quirks and his anxiety and his autism for nearly a third of my life. I understand the island a little more every day.
People like me, we use smugness and sneering and bananas to protect a small inner light. This light, it flickers like a tiny candle on a windy day.
The wind is trying to control our vulnerability and stamp it out and make it disappear because vulnerability is so scary and it makes us feel weak and cold and alone. It makes us feel defenseless.
So we build a wobbly fortress around our candle out of sticks and stones and green plastic bowls. We have to hide it from the wind, and the world, and maybe even ourselves.
With my marriage crumbling before me, one stick at a time, I dismantled my fortress and I tried to weed out the resentment.
Thirteen years later, here in front of me is this man and next to me is this boy and they love each other a lot and their love is different from mine and I have learned that is very, very okay.
The thing is, Joe is much better at so many things than I am when it comes to this unusual boy of ours.
He always lets him rub his hair between his fingers, which I never do because I hate when people touch my hair. 
He always shows him the receipt when they go grocery shopping so Jack can see that apples were on sale but the grapes were more expensive than usual.
And when Jack is tired, or he has a headache, it is his father he seeks. He stretches his long body on top of Joe’s, and closes his eyes.
He is the gain to my loss—the ultimate balance sheet of marriage and parenting.
I can’t lie. Every now and again the old voice in my head starts to whisper, and I fight the urge to become The Person again. I read the latest research on autism and begin to panic, or I worry Joe won’t remember to give Jack his medicine when I’m out with my book club and maybe I should write down a little reminder.
He always remembers.
Do me a favor. Take a moment today, and look in the mirror. Look yourself right in right in the eye. Are you The Person? Are you standing in the way of a loving, messy, unpredictable relationship because you have marooned yourself on an ivory island?
Don’t stand in the way, that’s what I want to tell you. Don’t block the light from him, or her, or the world. Come out from beneath your pile of sticks, and take a deep breath.
The wind will stop blowing, I promise. You will stand straight and tall and honest in the still, tranquil air and nothing bad will happen to any of you. It is in the quiet space of light where life is lived best.
And remember, it’s never about the bananas.
I’m really scared about what’s going to happen to him.
I know. Me too.
Me too.
***’
This article originally appeared at CarrieCariello.com.
