reaching

I haven't been able to form a thought, let alone in words, since my last post. But I've been thinking a lot about long reaches lately. Tieran's been at his new temporary home for three months now. Three months since I left him there, both of us in a fog. That day where he showed true fear is long gone. His survival mode is back, and his defiance even stronger. I can't help but wonder how far the pain of his past will reach into his future.
I realize now that it was really not me. That I wasn't in some way instigating the problems. I watch him there, engaging in and carrying on the same battles that he had with me. In fact, now I am the reprieve from that battle. If someone fills the caretakes position, they will get the battle. You tell him to brush his teeth more than once or twice, and he assumes the position. The position of "oh no I won't!" The position of please God, dont' let there be some unsafe unstable unpredictable big person in charge of me... I imagine it will truly be a very long time before he is able to trust that not every big person is like his first mother.
He turns five this month. Which means he will have been out of his terrifying home as long as he was in it. It took only 2.5 years to create this damage. I have always scoffed at the stats that talk about how many years it takes to undo damage... I don't scoff so much anymore. I realize that the days don't counterbalance the way I thought they would. Sure, he's been out of that environment for 2.5 years now. But how many of those days have been healing? How many of those days has he set down the model he learned there? not many.
But it is for those days that I pray. for those days that I long for and watch for and wait for. Those days that will eventually add up to enough that they may tip the scales. He had three days a couple weeks ago. Three in a row that he actually enjoyed himself, made himself available for fun activities and didn't waste all his time fighting those who are trying to help him. He's probably had a handful or two of them in the last 2.5 years. I hope that they become more frequent, and last longer. I hope that the rewiring of his internal model will have as long a reach as his primal wounds have had. I hope that our days of soccer and coloring and dance parties will start to become as much wired in him as the days of stabbings or hunger or screaming.