As a human being, when life's challenges hit home I experience them pretty much like anyone else.  I get angry, sad, depressed, stressed, whatever.  But there's also something in me, as a writer, that stands back and watches and learns. I remember reading an article in Writer's magazine years ago.  I don't remember who said it or the exact wording, but it was a female writer, and she said something like, My dog could die, my house could burn, my husband could leave, and there would still be a part of me standing to the side and saying, Isn't this interesting?

Which sounds like something a psychopath would utter.  It seems so devoid of appropriate feeling.  But the way I look at it is this:  Life is a beautiful mess.  It's the chaos of the hurricane caused by the mosquito that your grandmother swatted on a front porch one summer evening.  You never know what can fall in your lap...the good or the bad.  It's scary and exciting and terrible and wonderful, and if you really want to enjoy it, you have to accept all of it.

This past week my son was admitted to a psychiatric ward at a children's hospital.  We took him there because his behavior had finally gotten the best of us.  It was more than we could handle.  We realized, while he was gone, that we had just been managing our lives this entire time.  We were putting out fires and forgetting to live. I confided this incident to a few friends and inevitably, they were horrified.  They felt sorry for us and sorry for him and wanted to fix it.  A couple of friends listened and then changed the subject and redirected the conversation back to themselves.  A couple of friends brought food.  One friend told me I didn't have to have all the answers right now, and she was the one I listened to the most.

The point is that we got some help for our kid.  It was a long time coming.  I am by no means convinced that all problems are now solved and we can move forward with the warm assurance that this new medication he's on is the magic bullet that will put down the moody beast that rears its ugly head in him on his worst days.  Instead I've learned, this week, that each day is like a pearl on a string.  Some of those pearls are flawless.  Some of them are misshapen, like freshwater baubles.  And some of them are discolored.  But they are all pearls, and they all have their own beauty.  I've also learned that there are too many things I have let fall by the wayside, and too many things I have put up with for far too long.  Life is precious.  Life is sweet.  Life is not meant to be wasted feeling sad.

My son is not his disorder.  He, himself, is also precious, and sweet.  Dealing with is disorder is a one day at a time scenario.  I consider him, and the extraordinary amount of patience, and love, that he requires, and wonder how many people would actually be able to do it?