In The Book

 One day, I'm going to write a book.  Sometimes when I can't sleep at night, I lay in bed and outline chapters in my head.  It will be a book about raising a child with special needs.  A memoir/educational tool for other parents.  Or maybe I won't write it for anyone else but me.  But I will write it, because important lessons are being learned, and I have stories to tell, and someday I want to look back at this adventure and see how it has forced my growth.

Someday, when I write that book, there will be a whole chapter about resentment.  Especially for people like us who have no diagnosis to work with.  How we struggle to fight against it day after day, but it slowly comes creeping in.  Like while trying to find somewhere private to change a five year old's poopy diaper at some place like the beach.  Or when attempting to feed yourself lunch, at the same time as feeding your baby...and your five year old, who still hasn't quite mastered the skill of using a fork.  I will write about how battling those seeds of resentment is a constant exercise in mind control.  And about begging doctors for a diagnosis, just so you can have somewhere to place the blame.  Just to be able to say, "This is happening because of x,y,z."

And in this book, there will be a chapter about coming to terms with the fact that sometimes just getting through something makes it a victory.  About how I feel like a super hero after every outing, every IEP, every Sacrament meeting.  About high fiving Matt after we left the zoo, because damn that was hard, and I don't ever want to do that again, but we did it.

There will be a chapter about the people around us who make it so much easier.  The grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles, and friends who save the day from time to time.  I will write about them all.  And how we have wild dreams of moving to far off places, but we know we will never go...because we could never do without them, and neither could Aubrey.

Someday, when I am brave, I will write about what having a child with special needs does to a marriage.  And what it does for a marriage.  How it can easily be the undoing of a couple who aren't taking care of their relationship, and treating it with tenderness.  How we are the lucky ones who have grown closer as a result of it, and have learned how to take care of each other when it all feels like too much.

In the years to come there will be more lessons learned, more stories to tell, more victories to claim.  I'll store them up and keep them safe, and one day I will have the satisfaction of putting it all together.