Welcome to Holland: It's dark!

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.

Monday, September 6, 2010

It's dark!

So for months now I have been thinking about going dark A LOT! I was very reluctant because I have been blonde for 5 years ( I think... maybe longer) and for 3 of those years its been platinum! I needed a change. That is the longest I've ever been the same color. I like change. I liked my white hair a lot but I was getting sick of the maintenance of being platinum and also my hair was beginning to feel like straw. Not good. I am naturally very dark so it was unbelievable that I was platinum for that long. I still had reservations because I hadn't been dark for so long! But now I am! I don't know if I like it yet. I feel like a stranger when I look in the mirror. I get the weirdest looks from people... no one in my neighborhood has ever seen me dark so I mean people actually stop in the middle of the road to take a second look then the window comes down and I hear, Oh I didn't recognize you! Ya, tell me about it. I completely startled someone at church yesterday. I completely startle myself when I pass a mirror. So... as soon as I get comfortable with myself again... I will post some pics! I hope I get used to this... there is no turning back! ( at least not for a few months:) )