Splendid Mayhem: Foreign Language...

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.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Foreign Language...

BITES!!! Ask me tomorrow and I might tell you I enjoy it. But, after spending about 85% of my day studying one I must tell you I do not, can not, & will not enjoy it. I'm kicking myself in the butt for not studying better along the way like I did throughout the last chapter (and aced that test with a 96). However, there were a few things in the last few weeks that happened unexpectedly- and left me at a point where the last thing I wanted to do was focus on French.

The point of an 11:30 pm whiney post.... I dread my exam tomorrow morning. And, I just thought you all should know it.

1 comment:

KieraOctober 5, 2008 at 11:59 PM
Good luck on your exam tomorrow. I am feeling your pain on studying! I am trying to figure out how I am going to fit it all in this week also, so I am right there with you on the school whining!

It is all worth it in the end, right? right????

Good luck!!
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