The Future

I used to think that I wanted to know everything about the future. I wanted to know exactly what was going to happen and how and when. No surprises.

Faced with an uncertain future, I now question why I want to know such things. How will it make my life different or will it make it any different?

I thought that it would be nice to know what is going to happen. To be able to prepare for it, but what if it isn't even something that I can prepare for? What if I were to learn about the future but have no way of knowing what to do with that information?

I have a need to control things and the fact that I have no control over the future is very difficult for me.

Daniel's prognosis is a mystery. Will he walk, will he go to school, will he progress at all beyond today? Will he have seizures? Will he require a wheelchair and 24 hr care?

Jason is always quick to point out though that we could even ask those questions about Alison. A happy and healthy child but what do we know?

I worry unnecessarily sometimes. Or, shall I say, I worry when I cannot do anything for what I am worrying about and so I waste time (precious time) worrying about the future and not paying attention to the present.

I have learned a lot since Daniel's diagnosis. I have learned about what is important in life. I have learned to treasure the small things. But the one thing that is taking me a while to learn is how not to worry and look into the future. I have wanted a crystal ball for so many things in the past. I wanted to know. I was always scared to know but thought all along that I would be better off.

I have to learn, am learning that the crystal ball would not give me any pleasure no matter what it told me about the future, it would only make me lose what I have now.

Two Very Different Worlds

This past week I took Alison to get her registered for Kindergarten. I am not sure why this was such a hard thing for me. It could be just the realization that she is growing up, that she is not the little toddler she was not too long ago. I am having a hard time with it all.

This week I also called about initiating Daniel into the school system too, but in a very different way. He remains in early intervention until he is 3 years old however, we have the option of exploring what the school system has to offer in the way of special education for him. It is a whole other world.

In the first world there is normal lingo of registration, kindergarten readiness, reading, school bus, first day of school and in the other world there is this language that I am not used to using. Things like evaluations, therapist--words that don't belong in an almost 2 year olds life.

It is still raw, it still hits me sometimes the way it did 9 months ago, that feeling of having your whole world taken and put upside down. I am still trying to catch my breath, still trying to make sense of it all. On the outside it may seem that I am okay but it is very much there close by the surface and I don't know when or if it will ever go away.