Splendid Mayhem: I'm In Need Of A BRAIN

Welcome To Holland

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......
When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

I'm In Need Of A BRAIN

Do you have one you could give me?! Seriously, today is just NOT my day. Here's what I've done so far.... that you can totally laugh at b/c I'm sitting here going "Jessica- what are you thinking?!"

* I pick Logen up from school to take to therapy. I notice my gas light is on. No biggie, I get into the turn lane and pull into a BANK. I get out and am ready to pump gas- only I realize the particular bank (and no bank that I'm aware of)DOES NOT (editing to add the 'does not') has a gas pump
* I FINALLY make it to a REAL gas station. I insert my card to pay. However, it keeps telling me to INSERT YOUR CARD. I look at my 'card', only its not my debit card but my DRIVERS LICENSE.
* I've been working on burning the 200+ songs on my computer on to disks so that I can wipe out my computer (still not done) since about 9am. It's nearly 3pm. I'm getting so ticked off that windows media player keeps telling me to "insert a disk". I've inserted a disk. I've put every friggin' disk in the stack in the disk drive, yet none of them are working! I pull it out ready to chunk it outside when I actually READ the disk. It's a DVD-RW. Not CD-RW. Could be why I can't write music to it. DUH!
* This is just a case of foot in mouth- I called the Dr this morning to request a consult. I make the appt and she says, "Can I ask how you heard about us?" Sure, my husband delivered your boobs yesterday. She said, "What?" Let me clarify. My hubby is your fedex man, you have boobs fed-exed to you yesterday.
Wow, Jess... You are a very bright crayon today! It's only 3pm. It could get worse. I blame it on my first 16oz cup of REAL (not decaf) coffee (a caramel mocha) since March 2006. Almost 2 years. The caffine has obviously made me loopy.

2 comments:

KieraFebruary 12, 2008 at 9:39 PM
Jess! Thanks for sharing! I laughed out loud, but it was only because I know how those days go! I hope that a little rest clears it u*
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* ~ *Jessica* ~ *February 12, 2008 at 9:53 PM
I am so glad I just left your blog, after I read that your P doesn't work. I would have been lost with the ** in my comments had I not known that. Crazy how much you notice the letter P when it's replaced by a *!!! My - key was picked off by Parker. It's under warrenty, but I don't feel like doing w/o a computer for 2-6 weeks to get the key put back on.
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