***Warning: Extreme self-pity ahead, read at own risk. Likely side-effects: one way ticket to downer's ville***
Today was a very tough and mentally grueling day. Monster's ear infection seems to be going ok, he fell asleep fairly easily last night and slept fairly well. He woke up a wee bit early (6 am), but he also fell asleep a wee bit earlier (around 9).
The day started out well enough; I was exhausted but I don't actually remember the last time I didn't feel that way. Exhaustion seems to be norm, not the exception. Poor me. I went to bed at a decent time, but spent way too much time imagining the perfect post, the perfect blog entry, the entry that would change the world. In a way, I went to sleep on a note of exhausted optimism. I woke with the same feeling. It's sad, when that's the best you feel all day.
Mr. called me on my way to a meeting (for which I thought I was prepared but for the wrong thing) to tell me about the upcoming CA court decision about Gay marriage and a happy-happy story involving a horse named Autism Awareness (http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/horse/triplecrown08/news/story?id=3284238). Both made me smile. The last real smile of the day.
By the time I sat down to see what my great state had done about the fate of Prop 8, it was later in the day. My state again let me down. The court pulled some fucked up mixed message decision, legalizing discrimination doesn't rise to the level of "major revision" to our State Constitution, but it's ok to have a few thousand couples live against that same constitution. This leaves what many view as the most liberal state lagging the likes of Iowa in the realm of equality. Gay marraige doesn't really touch my life in but the most cursory way. My in-laws have no use for a judge to tell them they are a family. My marraige, though not religous in anyway, is deemed acceptable, even if we live our life throwing the "tradition" of marraige on its head with Mr. giving up his career to stay home and raise Monster and me going out to earn the capital needed to do so. For me, as a woman, it makes me wonder what's next. How far does "traditional" go in the hearts and minds of my fellow Californians? As the mother of a disabled child, it is almost a physical blow. If Californians find that a loving home is harmful to children because the parents share a gender, what are they going to think of a man who may lash out when his senses overcome his reason? It sounds disjointed, I'm sure, but very real to me. Both situations draw a line in the sand as to how accepting people will be to differences. And my family is anything but typical.
The horse story is nice though.
The day was rounded out with a meeting with the school district. I know the District feels like they are making good progress. But to me, it seems like we are saying the same things over and over again. Perhaps we need to in order for the message to get out, but the glacial pace of change, when juxtoposed with the lightening speed of childhood, is frustrating and terrifying. I realize that this is the case with all pioneers; our struggles do not benefit us but those who come down the trail we have blazed. I know I've benefited from the brave women who came before me and I shouldn't chafe at giving back by blazing the next trail. But I'm a selfish bitch. I resent the time I spend on things that won't benefit me or mine. Tonight I do, anyway.
On the Monster front, things took a bad turn today. We aren't sure of exactly what happened, but when Mr. picked him up from school, Monster was red cheeked with a nasty rash. He still had it by the time I came home from work, which means it must have been something awful. Things are consistent with him getting into dairy/casein. He slipped away from us today, back to that world in which only he lives. Logically, I know two steps forward, one step back. Emotionally, it's like watching him slip into a coma. He left me. He left all of us, today. His speech therapist said it was a 180 from where he usually is. It's a sickening reminder that the clock is ticking for him. We are running out of time to pull him through the window (as Jenny McCarthy would say); the window got smaller.
Sure, I know, logically, that he has an ear infection; he's been pumped up with dyes the past few days. Whatever he ate or came in contact with at school was just enough to send him over. That's how delicate the balance is. A painful reminder that things are more precarious than I want to admit. That I can't control his environment to the extent I want and he can't assist us or even tell us when those who are suppose to protect him fail in their duty. I want to blame the teacher, the aides, but I know they do the best they can and these things happen. Truly, I know that. Moving forward (that's for Joyce), all we can do is close the loophole and do our best to prevent it from happening again.
Still, it's a punch in the gut to see him this way. When I get past this funk, when I can close off the emotions, I'll be able to objectively use this as a measure of how far he's come. All I have to do is push the panic into that dark closet in my head and bar the door.
But the horse story was nice.
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