A Glimpse of the weary warrior

People often say I’m sweet.  They think that because I enjoy helping people when I can, am generally kind, and don’t have a pair of horns sticking off of my head that I am sweet.   They are completely amazed when I won’t just accept the status quo, when I vocalize my discontent with ineptitude, when I call a spade a spade.    No longer do they say I’m sweet…..no suddenly I am stubborn, arrogant, and I seem to have grown those horns rather quickly.  Yes people think I’m sweet, until they don’t.

It has taken much fighting to get my boys the adequate education they are granted by the government.  It has taken many, many hours of phone calls, research, meetings, networking, yelling, doctors, more surveys and forms than I can count, more research, more phone calls, more meetings, more yelling, and more tears.  It is an endless cycle.  A cycle I repeat for every one of my guys on the spectrum over and over again.  I have read the IDEA and have portions memorized, I have more copies of the parents’ rights book than I know what to do with (I have actually considered wallpapering the bathroom with it;-)  It is a full time job.  A job I am passionate about and take very seriously.    There are times occasionally though where I weary of the battle.  Times when I want nothing more than to hang up my armor, pull on my flannel pjs, curl into a ball and cry.  This is your glimpse of one of those times.  This is your glimpse of me at my most vulnerable.  I considered not writing about this time.  I fully intended to give a dissertation on the woes of our education system as a whole and more specifically those of SPED here in small town TX.  Never fear that day will come but for tonight I find I am feeling tender and bruised.  Every war has its casualties.  Every solider knows that nothing worth fighting for is ever free.    This war has cost me many things but today the cost was that of a dear friendship. 

Tomorrow I will once again don my battle gear and march into battle; the IDEA firmly in my hand.  Tomorrow I will once again be brave and fearless.  Tomorrow school administrators will tremble before my mighty roar.  Tomorrow……tomorrow……honestly I don’t want to think about tomorrow for a little while.  For a little while I will mourn what is lost and think not upon the battle.  I leave you with one of my favorite poems by Longfellow

The day is done and darkness falls from the wings of night, as a feather is wafted downward from an eagle in his flight. 

I see the lights of the village gleam through the rain and mist and a feeling of sadness comes over me that my soul cannot resist

A feeling of sadness and longing that is not akin to pain and resembles sorrow only as the mist resembles rain

Come read to me a poem, a simple and heartfelt lay that shall soothe this restless feeling and banish the thoughts of day

Not from the grand old masters, not from the bards sublime whose distant footsteps echo through the corridors of time

But read from some humbler poet, whose songs gushed from his heart like the rains of summer or tears from the eyelids start

Such songs have the power to quiet the restless pulse of care and come like a benediction that follows after prayer

Then read from the treasured volume the poem of thy choice and lend the rhyme of the poet the beauty of thy voice

And the night shall be filled with music and the cares that infest the day shall fold their tents like Arabs and as silently steal away


Goodnight to you my friends.  May you also find a respite from your battle tonight.-Kris