I can see you...

I had a friend send me a message today on FaceBook about a friend of hers who is gravely ill. At the end of her note she said that she loves to read my funny posts and I often make her laugh. She then noted that she knows that although I disguise it with humor there are days when I am really hurting. She's right. I hate to admit that. Not sure why though, it makes perfect sense.

"If I didn't laugh, I'd cry."

How many times have I used that one? Tons, tons I tell you! I do use humor to self medicate. I don't know when it started. In high school probably, when I thought my world was crashing down around me. Something I've been wanting to write about for awhile, but not sure if I'm brave enough yet.

Regardless, I did have a crappy day. How many people do you know that would find it enjoyable to have to physically put their screaming mildly autistic 5 year old on a bus full of kids to go off to Kindergarten? (I say mildly b/c I don't want anyone to think for one second I deserve any pity. I am not the super parent that most special needs kids have. I am amazed at their patience and strength - I am not worthy of the pedestal they should be on!)

So anyway, if I didn't find the humor in it, I would've been a basket case. It's pouring down rain, there are already 4 cars behind the school bus, 50 kids on the bus (including 3 of my own who probably wanted to crawl under their seats) watching me carry this hysterical kid up the steps. He's thrashing around so much that in his attempts to kick me in the face, his shoe flies off. The driver and I are looking for the shoe. She thinks it's outside. I'm bending over looking under the bus for the shoe, I notice that there are now 7 cars waiting for the school bus which stops just short of a huge parking lot. I know the people in these cars are thinking "Could they not have made the bus stop 20 feet further up the street so we could just pull in and park?" They are also at this point thinking "Who is this newly awakened woman in her sweatshirt and duck pajama pants pushing her upset child onto the bus? And why is she now looking under the bus? I don't have time for this."

I can't look at it in any seriousness, it makes me so sad. I can't imagine not trying to find at least a little humor in the scene, I wouldn't be able to coninue putting one foot in front of the other. If I look at it for what it is: a poor terrified little boy doesn't, for reasons he cannot communicate, want to go to school. He went last week and had several meltdowns and had to be removed from the classroom at least once a day. Why would he want to go back? There's a middle aged woman, not organized or motivated enough to get dressed before she goes to the bus stop. She has no pity, she just stone face puts him on the bus making sure he knows that he has no choice. After shoving her tiny child into a seat, she quickly looks for something he dropped or threw (or kicked) but just sort of waves at the bus driver and tells her to go. She is as dismissive as a Nazi guard. (I blame that one on the book I'm reading) Anyway, she sighs and walks casually back to her house in the pouring rain wearing what are obviously not outside slippers.

Now I am depressed...

I pray that God continues to grant me the warped and twisted sense of humor that has kept me going for 43 years. It's the only way I'll survive.