Barnmaven

So sensitive

I think of the bloggers I follow as friends.  Some of them know that, and perhaps feel the same way about me.  Some don't.  I feel they are friends because I have shared in their lives through the medium of their words and in them I have recognized myself. 

But sometimes I don't understand their sensitivity to the slightest insult. 

Perhaps my experience as a blogger doesn't lend to understanding.  It helps to have a small audience.

It helps to not be (s0) sensitive (anymore, after years of therapy and, one must say, getting old).

It helps that in almost five years of blogging I have probably only had one truly negative comment on this blog and one or two on posts elsewhere.

Even so.  I've had negative comments in other places that mattered way more than this space.  At work.  From friends or in organizations I belong to.  I'm no stranger to hearing really remarkable things being said about me - some true, some not.  Some nice, some ugly.  Whatever.

I don't care if you want to criticize me.  It's fine.  Go ahead.  I can take it.  If I weren't prepared to be disagreed with I wouldn't be putting my words on the internet for the world to view.  Offering opinion invites scrutiny.  Invites differing opinions.  Invites others to be amused, outraged, insulted, offended, enraged. (With any luck, not so much of the enraged. One hopes.)

Rarely am I critical of other bloggers, at least publicly.  I tend to be a supportive person, and I think that life's challenges for other people are for them to work out.  I think most people know what they really need to do to solve their problems, and the best way I know to help them is to just let them know I care.  I might have my own opinions about why they're in the pickle they're in, but personally I don't know that its helpful to share those opinions.  Besides, unless I know the person intimately, there are details of their particular situation that are invisible and unknowable to me.  That's the point where sharing an uninformed opinion might just make me an asshole. 

But just because someone's being an asshole doesn't make them a troll.

Very rarely will I leave a negative comment on another's personal blog, with the notable exception of Penelope Trunk, who absolutely makes me want to weep in frustration.  Other than that, mostly I believe I'm benign.  But I believe very firmly in the value of the critic. 

Insulting for the sake of insult is childish.  Taking umbrage or offering a different opinion is something different.  Perhaps others don't dialogue the way one would like them to, always, but the opinion that is offered is nonetheless often quite legitimate. 

 My sincerest advice to any blogger ( or friend on facebook or person on Twitter or coworker or RL person I love) is to let the voices of the angry horde blow by you like so much dust in the wind.  Listen to your own heart.  Do what you think is right.  It might not be right for me, it might be a bad choice that you make, but you have the right to make it and you have the right to ignore all advice to the contrary.  This is, though, only a first step.  Learning to put your life out there for the world to comment on means starting at step one:  Let it go. 

You could stay there forever at step one, learning to let what others think mean just what it does.  Staying at the first step is an option, certainly.  There's another place to grow, though, if you're up to it.  If you are secure enough to handle a little criticism, hear what is offered.  Receive it from a different place than one of defensiveness.  Listen to criticism with ears that are not  emotionally engaged.  Sometimes the simple act of doing this will grant you the ability to garner insight out of what you might have one time dismissed.  You don't have to take everything to heart, you don't have to take anything to heart. But don't be afraid to sift through it.  Dismiss what doesn't resonate, accept what might be worth digging in to a little deeper.  Do it without apology, without anger, without judgment.  Without EGO.

I appreciate the sense of community that being online offers.  I have a deep and abiding sense of gratitude to so many bloggers who have made me laugh, made me cry, made me think, made me mad.  Every interaction I've had has helped me to know myself better, helped me to grow.

But I think many times some of us fail to make the distinction between those that are critical of us and those that only wish to make us be quiet or be hurtful.  I think it is too easy to lump all negative commentary into one big cooking pot and label it "troll soup."

Yes, there are those that simply leave nasty words because for whatever reason at the time they wrote them, they felt joy in being destructive.  So what?  Unless they're threatening you bodily harm, their words mean nothing.  Hell, when I wrote the piece a couple of years ago about my daughter punching a boy  in the junk, the secondary syndication of that post on a nationally read platform actually had one commenter suggesting readers look me up via my BlogHer profile and pay me a visit.  (You bet, pal, I welcome you into my yard, so long as you're fine with really big dogs and if you don't mind the police officer who lives across the street may wish to handcuff you if you get out of hand.)  That kind of crap is out of line.  But whatever.  Someone calling me a jerk or a bitch or saying I'm a terrible parent or a terrible human being?  Those are just words.  Those words don't carry any more power than I lend them.  The ability to cope with the virulence of others, the responsibility to cope with the opinions of others , lies not with others.  It belongs to me.

Those who put their words in the court of public opinion have known this truth for as long as the written word has existed.  People will never as a whole respond to my words in the manner I hope they will.  I can deal with that.

I don't have to be angry with people because their opinions of me or my writing aren't what I hoped they would be.  Neither do you. 

On understanding why life is sometimes a mountain of crap

I just posted a comment over on a blog I read fairly regularly.  If you want to read some exceptionally beautiful writing, go read Finding Your Voice.  Jennifer Lawler is a gifted writer, and everytime I read one of her posts there are three thoughts that go through my head.

1.  She has an amazing talent and prose that gives shapes to words, makes sentences into concrete things and describes feelings that punch you right in the stomach.

2.  My writing, in comparison, is crap

and 3., most of all 3., the petty things that I tend to complain about are hangnails taken in the context of what she and her daughter live with and go through.

Go read her blog, really. 

I was commenting on her most recent post and as I was considering what she had written, I thought of that old saying "you always get what you deserve," and I thought to myself, no, that's not really true.  And typed instead, Nobody ever really gets what they deserve, do they.

But then I wonder, what is it we really DO deserve?

Do we deserve anything?

And where do we cross the line, either way, into accepting what it is we've got or not got, or into being either smugly entitled or sadly feeling as if we earned some kind of terrible karma?  When is it OK to say "I earned this, I worked hard for it, and I'm proud of myself," and when is it better to just shut up and be thankful that you've had opportunities maybe other people didn't get? 

There's no universal great equalizer that I can determine.  There is always the potential of equalization, either via natural disaster, coincidence, or consequence, but the fact of the matter is that in this life, at least so far as I can see, there are always people who have more and people who have less.  And perhaps its a simple twist of fate that one person who has a great idea finds the right set of circumstances to turn that idea into wealth and fame, and another person who is also full of good ideas never finds exactly the right opportunity to make it big.  That one couple has lots of healthy babies and another couple can't have any, or they have a baby who is desperately ill or who dies.  That someone who is less capable gets into the college of someone else's dreams.  That one baby out of six other babies gets to go live with parents who were for the most part gentle and loving and the other five got a brutal existence at the hands of a pedophile and their abusive mother.  That one guy steals other people blind and lives the high life and doesn't get caught, and another guy can't steal a gallon of gas to get to work on time without getting nailed and jailed.   That a faithful spouse gets cheated on.  That some folks are unbelievably wealthy through no real effort of their own while others live in brutal poverty simply, each because they just happened to be born to a particular set of parents.

And what is it, exactly, that we are supposed to learn from this?  What's the takeaway, kids?

Damned if I know.

Or maybe, I'm not sure yet, but I'm trying as hard as I can to understand.

I am then reminded of David Richo's Five Things:

Everything changes and ends.  Things do not always go according to plan.  Life is not always fair.  Pain is part of life.  Poeple are not loving and loyal all the time.

Richo presents a philosophy that says "I can either be crushed, possessed, devastated by the circumstances in my life or I can become a witness to them."  This doesn't mean being a beaming ray of sunshine "Oh, hey, everything's great! Yep!  Never mind that my marriage ended or I lost my job or I have a terminal illness, don't worry -- I'm just FINE!"  No, what he means is that we neither stifle nor give in to the emotions that are an inevitable part of being alive and human, but that we feel them so fully that they move through us and move on. 

Neither stoic nor overwhelmed.  And accepting that there is a big pile of awful, unfair things that happen in this world that we have no control over.  Living with compassion for others and being moved by their circumstances, listening to their pain and caring what happens to them.  Caring about what happens to us. 

I don't know sometimes how I'll find that balance.  Richo and other writers like him often recommend meditation as a path to mindfulness.  Which sort of makes me feel left out of the game, because meditation and I are not close acquaintances, not now and not likely ever to be.  But I find myself more often turning the radio off in the car and using the silence to ponder life's great mysteries (and try to decide what I'm making for dinner).  I'm trying to be less of a "fixer" of other people's lives and more of a witness and a companion to their suffering.   I'm working on being willing to let my feelings be what they are and to let go of the need to assuage them somehow. 

Maybe I'll never get there, maybe I'll spend the rest of my life looking for pocket gurus to answer my questions and tell me how I'm supposed to live.  

I do believe that I'm never going to actually become a truly enlightened being, not on this earth, anyways, but I hope I at least grow and learn enough to find the beginnings of understanding.  Because I would very much like to understand. 

 

NaBloPoNoMoHuhWha and thoughts on the "obesity problem"

I'm just not going to kill myself writing some piece of crap blog post just so I can say I posted every day. 

I thought about it.  I thought about trying to pass of some piece of brain dead drivel as a "blog post" and simply opted out.  That's not the way I like to do things.

After I spent the day finishing up repainting my dining room and doing a few minor bits of housework (and inadvertently going "WHOOF" every time  I tried to sit down and my thighs reminded me about all the posting in my dressage lesson) I went and I got a haircut and I came home and I sat down and drank a glass of wine and I completely lost the will to move or talk or even think.  I was that kind of tired where your body just wants to curl up in bed and maybe you'll be able to sleep and maybe you won't but every second you insist on staying past horizontal your skin and your eyes and your hair and your feet all scream at you to just crawl between the covers already because you're DONE.

And so I did.

---------

So this stupid sprained ankle has me struggling with feelings of guilt every time I put something in my mouth.  If I'm not running I shouldn't be eating says my shameful self.  Riding your horse and painting your living room don't exactly qualify as "sitting around," interjects my healthy self. 

Those two continue at war, and I continue to watch the battle being waged across magazines and news stories and blogs, the battle over whether being overweight is dangerous or healthy.  I commented on a recent blog post at Jessica Gottlieb's blog wherein Jessica took exception with a photo of a beautiful, albeit very curvy young woman.  Many commenters agreed with her contention that this woman was obese and therefore completely unhealthy.  I disagreed.

Looking at someone's picture tells you virtually nothing about their level of health or fitness.   There are plenty of active people who are also overweight, just as there are a great deal of thin people who are sedentary. 

There was a great interview with author and PhD Linda Bacon in the recent issue of MORE.  Bacon is a physiologist and the author of Health at Every Size.

In the interview, Bacon  contends that the term "obesity epidemic" is misleading.  While it is true that as a whole people in our society are heavier than they have been (at least in the years since we started tracking factors like weight), it is not an "epidemic" by any means, nor is there evidence that being heavier actually poses deadly risk.

She points out that while there is indeed a link between being overweight and developing Type II diabetes, its not a proven fact that being overweight actually causes the diabetes.  Scientifically it is well-known that being insulin resistant causes a person to gain weight.  It is more likely that the insulin resistance, which can have genetic and environmental factors, causes the diabetes and the state of being overweight.  Even so, those leading the charge in the anti-fat movement love to tell everyone how being overweight is causing everyone to become diabetic.    Similary there are associations between other illnesses and weight, but because there is an association between the two doesn't necessarly prove that one causes the other.

Bacon posits that the most dangerous and unhealthy condition is not that of being obese, but that of being sedentary.  In study after study, people who are overweight but active are healthier and live longer.   A 2008 Harvard study found that overweight women who exercised at least 4 days a week have a significantly lower risk of heart disease than people who don't exercise (regardless of weight).    Bacon also refers to studies that show that obese people with cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, hypertension and type 2 diabetes actually live longer than thin people with the same conditions. 

Dieting doesn't work.  People who restrict their calories and lose a lot of weight gain it back when they start eating normally again.  It is only a very small percentage of dieters who actually succeed, and the negative emotional effect of failing at weight loss is causing people to feel disproportionately unhappy.  And for what reason?  Because they don't look like someone else thinks they should?  That's no reason to feel bad. 

I'm not advocating being unhealthy, not by any means.  I see no redeeming value in loading yourself up with junk food and spending all of your time sitting on the couch watching TV or in front of the computer playing games.   But nowhere is it proven that all overweight people are sitting on the sofa twenty-four-seven gorging themselves on potato chips.

What I AM saying is that the shaming of fat people needs to stop.  Nothing is gained by insisting that fat people are unhealthy.  Trying to get people to feel bad about themselves accomplishes nothing except to make the finger-pointers look like judgemental so-and-sos.    I've never been a small person.  I'm tall, for one, and genetically built on the...er..."sturdy" side.  I've been heavy, I've been thin, but at any size, I've felt my very best when I've been physically active.  I can stack two tons of hay, I can cut my own wood, build a chicken coop from scratch and I can carry a 90 pound dog into the vet's office.  I can make a 1500 pound animal back the hell off by simply looking at him and lifting my hand.  I am powerful.  I can polish my toes and put makeup on my face and wear a killer dress and look fabulous.  I am beautiful.  I can do all of this despite the fact that you probably can't count my ribs and I'm inching past the "halfway" mark in my 40's. 

I refuse to feel bad about myself because I don't fit a magazine definition of what beauty is supposed to look like. 

Don't let them fool you into it, either.

 

 

 

A tiny speck in the universe

Committing to writing daily for a month is a big undertaking.  Life inside my bubble isn't quite what one might consider relaxed or leisurely.  I think its a good and necessary opportunity to flex a muscle in my brain, to the point where I can write when I have to write, even if there isn't some thought crying out to be shared.  It forces me to dig deeper past my sometimes foggy thoughts and search for threads to pull.  Some threads have decidedly short strings (you should see my drafts folder - it needs purging desperately) but some threads reveal surprising depth. 

I'm not doing NaBloPoMo to gain readership.  I'm not expecting that somehow I'll have a magic moment that launches this space into the atmosphere of the pithy and famous (though any blogger who doesn't admit that they're at least hoping for that is probably being disingenuous).

I'm doing this to become a better writer.  Not mechanically better, if I want that I'll join a writer's group and let others pick apart my plot, sentence structure and word choices.  But better in terms of my ability to write at will and as needed.  To be disciplined and capable at writing so that when I, like a million other dreamers, will finally send an envelope - lots of envelopes - to lots of publishers in hopes that one of them will read what's enclosed and decide to take a chance on backing me.

When I went to check the NaBloPoMo blogroll to verify my information was included I was reminded in a very concrete way that I'm just one amoeba in a vast sea of writers seeking to be heard and recognized.  There are over 2200 blogs listed on this month's blogroll.  If I were looking for new blogs to add to my own feed, even if I read 5 new blogs a day from that list (and I really don't have that kind of time) I'd have to repeat that daily for over a year just to get through them all.

When you realize how big the blogging world is - at least, when I realize how big it is - I'm humbled by the handful of you who keep stopping by here to read and to sometimes comment.  (Even you, Mom, who would come here and read even if it were all drivel, as it sometimes is).  So thank you.  You honor me with your investment of time and attention.

Oh, and I'm doing this

Blocks

 

I can't find it.  Can't find whatever-it-is that works inside my brain that forces me to my keyboard or to my journal or to the recorder I have in my car so that I can free the words that are rolling up and over and out of my brain.  Nothing meaningful is tapping on the back of my eyelids, begging me over and over again to write it out, put it to words, string words to sentences, organize sentences into paragraphs. 

Nothing.

I suspect - no, that's not right - I know there are things to be said.  Right now I feel walled off from them, tiptoeing around the edges of them and wondering when and how I'll be able to give voice to them.  Half-formed sentences well up in my throat but when I open my mouth, nothing comes out.

When I run I think, I hold conversations in my head with myself, with other people, with God.  I work things out and I draw conclusions.  I think about what I think until I know for sure what I think. And I ran this morning and I came back not one whit more sure of what I think than I had been when I was sleepily tying on my shoes at 5:30 am. 

I don't know what's wrong with me.  Where are my words?

Dragging

I spent Thursday and Friday over on the Wet Side of the state to join a small group of report writers to learn our new reporting software.  The program we've been using since I started at my job is being phased out.  Even though I'm a manager now and no longer an analyst, I still keep my hands fresh writing ad-hoc reports and working with our project manager to put new reports up on the portal. 

Training classes are frustrating to me.  Instructors have a script to follow, and they spend (to me) an inordinate amount of time talking about structure and theory.  Dude, I know why I'm writing this report, I know when to use a chart, when to use a list report, when to use a crosstab, blah blah blah blah blah.  Just show me how this new software works with my data and let me have at it.  Please.  So I spend the first part of the day busting through all of the exercises in the material and the rest of the day twiddling my thumbs.  Its really exhausting. 

The nice part was getting to have dinner with my friend Julie and her man and check out their new digs.  I'm in love with their house and I assume they won't notice if I sort of quietly move in.  I also got to see my brother, which doesn't happen often enough.  We had a lovely dinner and caught up on things. 

I got home after a four hour drive over the mountains late last night and then got up while the moon was still out this morning to head up to the Blues with Michelle for the last orienteering ride of the season.  9 miles round trip, I think we came in second this time.  Bugs had an excellent day, with the possible exception of the fact that he hates water.  We had to cross two small streams and when I say small, I mean they were little trickles of water, inches wide and less than that deep.  But it was water and therefore he didn't want to cross it.  His final resort, after it being explained to him that across was where he was headed, and no, I wasn't going to get off and walk him over the terribly frightening water, was to LEAP ACROSS.  Like a 15-hand mule deer jumping a 6 foot fence.  On the upside, if he's ever a wash as a trail horse he may have a career in the jumping ring.   Silly nag.

I have one more trip over the mountains for work on Monday and back here again on Tuesday and a week full of meetings after that.  I say all this only as a way of letting you know that if I don't manage to post anything for the next week or so, its only because I'm frantically trying to find time to sleep.

On a bright note, one of my posts was syndicated on BlogHer this week. Go check it out! 

Where I wasn't on 9/11/01

I listened to an interview yesterday on NPR with Carrie Lemack, who lost her mother in the September 11, 2001 attacks.  She runs Families of September 11 and Global Surivors Network.  She produced a documentary film called Killing in the Name, which profiles a Jordanian Muslim who lost 27 members of his family when a suicide bomber blew themselves up at his wedding.  I was struck profoundly by something Lemack said.  She talked about how often people, after learning that she lost her mother on September 11, share with her their stories of where they were on that day. 

"Its just hard.  Its like telling Jackie Kennedy where you were when her husband was shot.  You just wouldn't do that."

Lots of us are blogging this week about where we were on September 11, 2001.  Like most people I remember where I was.  I remember what I saw, what I felt.  And on this decade anniversary of the attacks, I need to remember that what I felt and experienced matters little.   I wasn't there. 

 The people who escaped the buildings inthe midst of fire and carnage, with injuries or memories that will impact them for the remainder of their lives - they don't care where I was.  The people who lost a husband, wife, partner, lover, child, parent, sibling - they don't care where I was.   Their lives were changed in ways I can't begin to imagine.

9/11 has been capitalized to death.  By our media, by our politicians, by authors and musicians and talk show hosts and pastors and pundits.  We've all of us, every one of us, used the date to some extent to garner attention, capital or comfort.   God knows comfort is something we are all much in need of these days, and it is expected that anyone's response to such an enormous loss of human life and potential would be visceral enough to be this keenly felt some ten years after the fact.  But God, even in the writing of this piece I can't escape the fact that I'm in a way just as guilty as everyone else of capitalizing from tragedy.  Enough, I say.

In the blogosphere much of the time people rally around events and issues in a way that adds to the greater context and discussion at large, and I love that.  But there are times where the writing around some issues take on a center focus, and I feel a little uncomfortable about that.  I feel uncomfortable about me doing that.  And I know I've done it.  I'm guilty.

I say this not to take issue with what anyone else is writing or saying about 9/11, but to remind myself that when it comes to this subject, there are several thousand stories far more important than mine. 

 

I hate talking about this

Another blogger had a post up last week questioning whether cultural norms had influence over the public behavior of children.  She noted that when driving through her suburb she couldn't help but notice that the children of some families who were - how do I say this the right way? - not white- were better behaved in public.  Aside from my distaste for the extreme overgeneralization about culture and how it is that you can identify simply from the color of a person's skin whether they've been in the You Ess of Eh one, three or ten generations (don't get me started, really.  To quote David Banner, you won't like me when I'm angry.) what really put the burr under my saddle pad was the smug tone of many of the commenters who had really well behaved children in public and of course that was the result of their fabulous parenting skillz.  And they all had anecdotes about seeing other parents who were clearly Not Good Parents because, well, you know -- THEIR CHILDREN DID NOT BEHAVE WELL IN PUBLIC.   Because CLEARLY, if your children don't behave properly in public YOU ARE NOT A GOOD PARENT.

So by this assessment, when my bipolar ADHD (and one with sensory processing disorder) children managed to sit quietly through an hour and a half long mixed English and Spanish with a confirmation thrown in Catholic Wedding, I am an EXCELLENT PARENT.  And when I took my kids to the grocery store and my son wouldn't stop running and shouting alternated with crying and begging for a hot wheels car, I was a TERRIBLE PARENT.  Because obviously both of these situations speak volumes about my parenting skills, and my children's special issues, which are invisible to people who don't know us, have NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.

When people smugly assure me that their children are well behaved because they are amazing parents, honestly, I want to smack them.  I would like to see someone who has never in their life had to manage a child in the middle of a bipolar rage take both of my children and successfully manage a two hour shopping trip through Wal-Mart.  You'll get a very special prize if you manage to make it through the store without a fight, a tantrum, happy yelling, angry yelling or a complete on-the-floor screaming meltdown.  Or all of the above.

Look, there are days when my kids do great in public.  Sometimes the stars align, the angels sing, God smiles down on us from heaven and the lions and the lambs lay down together in perfect peace.  We go to the store, we go to a birthday party or family barbeque and they have a good day.  We have a whole day where my kids don't try to kill each other.  We have a day where no one loses their shit.  Those days DO happen, and isn't it great if someone who has never met me before and probably will never see me again meets my kids on those days?  Because they will just know that I'm a Good Parent.

But on the bad days...

Look, SG is a dad.  His son is grown now, but by all accounts, his son was a pretty easy kid to raise.  He is great with my kids - he doesn't lose his temper, he never yells, he doesn't get all bent.  He's Mr. Calm and Easygoing 99% of the time.  He's not excessively permissive, he doesn't reward poor behavior and he expects good behavior.  Even so, if we are at the store and he is with us, there is no guarantee of good behavior.  Expecting my children to behave perfectly all the time is absolutely impossible.

So.

I have two points I wish to make here, and they should be obvious, but clearly according to the folks over at this other blog they are not, so here we go.

1.  Good parenting sometimes has very little to do with good behavior.  I have good kids, they are loving kids with a social conscience who want to please their parents and do the right thing.  They are also children with multiple diagnoses and invisible illnesses.  It is impossible for them to be perfectly behaved all of the time.  One of the hallmarks of a bipolar is the inability to modulate their voice.  I know bipolar adultswho still haven't figured out how to keep their voice from rising dramatically in volume when they are in a manic phase.  Children with ADHD are at times unable to manage their physical energy, and ADHD meds are time-bound.  They often don't last until dinnertime, and frankly sometimes on weekends I don't give them those meds because when they're not in school, the focus isn't a hard requirement and I like to give them a break when I can.   You CANNOT assume that a poorly behaved child is simply a little asshole and the result of piss-poor parenting.  You can't.  You can't see autism.  You can't see bipolar.  You can't see ADHD.  You can't see Aspergers, or Sensory Processing Disorder, or RAD or Tourette's or any number of childhood illnesses that originate in the brain and don't result in a pure physical marker that easily identifies that this is a child coping with illness.  YOU CAN'T.  So stop being an asshole and judging me and my children in public, 'kay?

2.  Similarly, you cannot, when driving by a family whose skin is a different color than yours, without actually stopping and talking to that family and asking them a lot of personal questions (which are none of yo' bidness) determine whether they are culturally acclimated, whether they have lived in this country for a short period of time or were born here, what parenting techniques they employ with their children and whether the culture you are assuming they come from is actually the one they are from.

I have found over the years that there is a wonderful community of parents on the Internetz who have kids a lot like mine, who don't overgeneralize, who support and console and cheer for one another, and who, when they are driving through their rich neighborhood or shopping at their local Wal-Mart, make no assumptions about children or parents by the behavior they witness.  When they see a frustrated mom coping with a screaming kid, they are more apt to give her a smile or a sympathetic glance - or even to put a hand on her shoulder and say "I'm sorry you're having such a tough day, I know its not easy." 

I have also found that the Internetz are chock-full of smug know-it-alls who lead Perfect Lives and have Perfect Children and are basically assholes.  Because you don't have perfect children, you are an inferior parent.  Their children are well-behaved, ergo they are Better Than You.   Eventually you get to a place where you can mostly discount them as ignorant, but occasionally you will have to write a long, pissed-off epistle of indignation just to get it off of your chest. 

I feel better now.

Empathy

One of the bloggers in my daily reader blogged about a rough day in public with her son, who has autism.  While I hate to read about another mother's struggle, I simultaneously crave reading about those difficult days if only because it helps me feel less alone, it helps me feel less panicked and less anxious about the bad days that my kids have.  Sometimes I wish my arms were long enough to reach around the world and just hold onto all the moms of children with disabilities and differences.  They are My People, my kith and my kin. 

Whenever I'm in a public place and I hear a toddler making that peculiar grunting scream of the bipolar child, or I see a mom struggling to hold it together while her child melts down for the umpteenth time,  I just want to run over to her and put my forehead against hers, share through osmosis all of my empathy, my own experience, what I know of other moms just like her and what I know about her simply because I have been her, too.  I suppose it goes beyond special needs, because God knows that parenting is hard sometimes, even when your kids aren't struggling with issues.  But for those parents whose kids have disabilities, visible or invisible, every tough day is especially grueling.  We know that it is not the last day we will have like this and we hope we don't have another one like it very soon.  And when it does happen soon, we are stretched thin as paper with the tiredness of doing this one more time.  And when it doesn't happen for a while, we get cocky and we assume things are better, until the next bad day slams shut on our fingers and says to us "Oh, no, you're not getting out of it THAT easy."  And then we panic some more because if things are indeed not getting better as we had hoped, where then are they getting?  Is there worse?  Can we handle worse?  Is there something different, something new and unexpected?  And how will we cope with it?  And cope with it we do, because we have learned that there is nothing other to do BUT cope.  Some days we cope exceptionally well and other days we seem to have lost the limited coping ability we were counting on to get us through; nonetheless, we cope.

We get to the point where days that to another parent might seem fearfully chaotic and difficult are actually quite good days for us, because nobody got hurt and the tears were relatively mild in comparison to the bad days.  The tantrums were fewer, there were no calls from school.  There is always a reminder that the illness is there, even when symptoms are quiet.  Daily medication is a daily reminder of just why it is needed and how important it is that it is ingested in order to ensure that school does not erupt in flames and that sibling interactions will be somewhat less bloody than they would otherwise be.

There are days when I want the moms who have raised children like mine to adulthood to come and place their forehead ever so gently on mine and pass along to me all the wisdom of their years, to show me how they have continued to place one foot in front of the other, continued to gently love their difficult children, continued to smile and hug and enjoy - and cope.  To prop me up with their empathy and their understanding and the energy to do this.

There are days when I wake up my children and the first thing I get is an arm wrapped around my neck and a cheek nuzzled up next to my own, with a morning-breath whisper of "I love you mommy."  There are days when I go in expecting to wake up children and instead finding that I am trying to rouse Honey Badgers from their dens.  There are days where just like Varda, I leave a big chunk of my heart lying on the floor of the playfield or the grocery store or the church, because as I have maneuvered my melted-down child off into the car, I have died a small death from being stared and and in some cases thought poorly of by people who think they're looking at an undisciplined child instead of one who is ill.   Oh, I relate to that. 

The good days, the bad days, they come and go and we keep getting by.  I hope all the other special needs moms in my life, the real-life ones, the bloggers, the Mama's forum ones, I hope and pray you all know just how much I love you and how much I depend on you being there to share your triumphs and tragedies with me.  I hope you know how much I love your special kids, how much I enjoy reading about how much YOU love them and how special and unique and precious each of them is. 

Come here, and press my forehead against your own.   See?