I Hitched up my Britches

I really like to read blogs by other parents of special needs children. Here's one by a mother raising a child with hearing loss, that I really like:

Big Teeth and Clouds

And in this post, she discusses that universal question asked by everyone when they go through hard times -- "why me?"

I sometimes think that's why God gave me three kids -- so I wouldn't have time to sit around thinking "why me?"  (and Joey @BigTeethandClouds, I don't for ONE SECOND think that's what you do!  That's MY tendency, not yours.  You know I love you!)

Once in awhile I'll think about how ironic it is that when I was younger and I didn't know what life was going to bring (and had never heard the words Fragile X Syndrome), I was a much more depressive, negative, downer of a person.  I was very likely to see everything that happened to me as a bad thing, and often felt like the whole world was against me.

(although on second thought, maybe this wasn't so unusual.  What teenager doesn't think the whole world is against them?  I just continued that beyond the teen years for awhile)

I wasn't actually clinically depressed.  It's just that nobody was as good at brooding to a sad song as I was.  My cup was half empty.  No, it was empty.  I was embarrassingly gloomy.

And basically without cause.  I mean, I had it pretty good as a kid.  Never wanted for anything, had parents who took good care of me and provided for me in every way.  I had nothing really to complain about, I don't know why I was such a Negative Nelly. 

So it's a little ironic to me that now I have children who struggle to accomplish the everyday, ordinary things that I used to completely take for granted.  Like making friends and playing games and going to birthday parties and having a good day at school.  They work so hard so do simple things, and they aren't Gloomy Guses.  They are about as happy as a kid can be.

I sometimes think that there is a wall beyond which, you either are going to fall to pieces or you are going to hitch up your britches and try and deal with things, and my kids put me up against that wall.  As it turned out, I only headed toward negative town when I practically had to create reasons to go there.

Now that things really are a little tough, I am up for the fight.  I didn't fall down and die, I rose to the occasion.  No more living on the dark side.  No more waiting for bad things to happen.  No more cups half empty.

I don't know how I stay positive.  I guess when pressed up against that wall, I went over it.  Or maybe I'm sitting on top of it.  Either way, I didn't let it smush me.