This journey has its share of terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days.
Tuesday went in that category.
I attended another thrilling meeting regarding Bridger's education. This meeting was for the educational psychologist and educational diagnostician to present the results of the myriad of tests they had performed on Bridger in advance of the "real" meeting to go over such things, which was held today.
It was a compact hour of them telling me every single thing that was wrong, negative, sub-par, and otherwise deficient in Bridger's abilities. There was not one positive word spoken to me at the meeting. A teacher might have softened her comments with some encouraging word about progress being made or a future anticipated glimmer of hope. No such luck with these peeps. Just the ugly and the uglier.
It was a hard hit. It was a long hour. At one point I just stared glassy eyed, looking straight ahead out the window in front of me. My head was burning in disbelief that I had to sit there and listen to that. At one point my lower eyelids could no longer contain the wall of tears that had built up on them, so down my cheeks they rolled. I apologized and reached for a tissue.
"That's ok," said the diagnostician, "we all have kids and know that sometimes things don't work out like you hope."
Really? Not like I had hoped? No kidding Jack.
I know full well what Bridger is and every one of his shortcomings. Those deficiencies and disabilities are things that I take on and chew, swallow and digest one at a time as needed. In doing it that way, they can go down easier - one at a time. It's like eating that pile of gross peas off your dinner plate when you were younger. One little pea swallowed at a time. . . as you sat at the table for what seemed like an eternity. (Or was I the only one that had this childhood experience with peas?)
Blasted in a hardcore consolidated hour with 600 deficiencies of your child all in one short sitting is like being forced to eat an entire mouthful of those peas all at once. You know what would then happen next . . . your gag reflex absolutely would take over and you couldn't help but to vomit.
That is what I felt like doing when I got home. But instead, I used my little bit of energy I had left to call United Healthcare to spend another lovely 2 hours of my life fighting over their mistakes again.
Awful day. There was no way to turn it around. . . or so I thought.
I opened the refrigerator to make myself a very late lunch. I pulled out the fixings for a chicken sandwich -- and then, I saw something that brought an unexpected smile to my face.
Gouda.
I found the little deli bag of some sliced Gouda cheese I had purchased last week.
You might think how pathetic I sound that I was smiling over Gouda. But in days that rank in the category of downright miserable, simple pleasures become critical saving graces to my day.
I wasn't cramming a bland, dry sandwich down my throat in the few minutes I had left before the kids returned from school. I saw myself as having a yummy gourmet sandwich thanks to a slice of nutty smooth Gouda.
That made me smile, and I was able to welcome my kids home with that same smile.
All it takes is a little simple pleasure to right a very wrong day.
I will take any simple pleasure that presents itself as such.
And Tuesday, I was very grateful for a simple slice of cheese.