TAKS Tension

All I asked was that he wear a clean shirt. Not one that he's worn, slept in and or retrieved from the laundry basket after a few days. This morning, of all mornings, needed to go well and it just didn't.

I feel horrible about it. Awful in fact, for not being intuitive enough to choose my battles more wisely, sad that I didn't have the ability to see the bigger perspective regarding the contents of the day (mine as well as his) before I decided to stab my battle flag into the ground and gulity because he may have a terrible day at school in part because I wouldn't let him simply wear a dirty shirt to school on practice TAKS day.

My son has never been overly concerned about what he wears. Well, let me explain that another way. He is not concerned about the same criteria that I might be focused on. He has a set of 'acceptable' shirts that he prefers. Delineating a shirt 'acceptable' or 'comfortable' makes it simultaneously impossible for my son to consider wearing one of the alternative shirts that quietly wait in his dresser drawer. In the most basic terms, he flatly refuses to wear any others. He would rather miss school than wear a alternative shirt - which is saying quite a bit if you understand how important his daily school routine is. This and his shirt routine must coexist.
As long as he's got one of his 'acceptable' shirts - he's fine. He doesn't care if it's dirty, paint-stained from Art class, damp, smelly, wrinkled or some other form of unclean that I haven't considered. If it's one of the good ones - it's all good. At least as far as he's concerned.
For me, it's different.

I typically insist that he wear a clean shirt. It's simple really. One clean shirt each and every new day. He has five or six in his acceptable stack so finding one that is both clean and acceptable shouldn't be a problem. Except that yesterday it was.
I've been busy. For some reason, I forgot to ask if he had a clean shirt before he went to bed last night. Such a minor oversight and one with such faar-reaching potential to create chaos. My son's whole day could be irreversibly shattered - all because of a simple laundry oversight. But nothing about this is simple. He can't just cope, wear a different shirt, choose and alternative, make due for a day, or deal with some textile outlier for the sake of making either his life, my life or the lives of the other residents in the house any easier. He doesn't seem to have the resilience and or capacity to understand that just a little flexibilty provides greater control.
Because; a.) Control is black and white. It either is or it isn't. b.) We all have criteria. Just because eveyone doesn't understand it, doesn't make it irrelevent. and c.) It's not my shirt, my day or my TAKS test.

I lost sight of what was important; getting my son through a diffficult day intact and with a sense of accomplishment and maybe even success. I lost sight of the big picture.
My son didn't. He kept his focus and fought for it even at the risk of placing his concentration in jeopardy on a very important day. But something tells me that my son will get over this set-back much sooner than I will.