SO special
I just booked a flight for tomorrow and I feel like I've taken a ride on the stock exchange. Between starting my search and actually picking an itinerary prices doubled. Doubled! Much frantic searching for trains or other planes ensued. I accidentally refreshed a page, found that a few prices had gone down and jumped on one. My head almost exploded when I tried to confirm the purchase and was told that the price had changed since it had last been quoted. Surprisingly, it decreased (and so did my blood pressure). So now I'm going to DC* tomorrow for a wedding. This is a wedding I'd completely forgotten about yet I'm able to go because one of my friends figured she'd reserve a room with 2 queens instead of a king (hee!) in case I resurfaced, and the brides were gracious enough to include me at the last minute. I'm even invited to the rehearsal dinner.
I've been feeling particularly inept lately, and the fact that people put up with my craziness and avoidance and that in the end things like this always work out frustrates me. I know it makes no sense, and I'm grateful and awed at the kindness of my friends and family. I just wish I didn't put them through this crap. It angers me that there's all this stuff that comes with the territory of being in my life. I have no clue how to deal with anger, the whole concept is kinda new to me, so I have to try to apply perspective first.
So yeah, I'm not easy to be around. That's not true, most of the time I'm a freakin' ray of sunshine. I'm just not easy to care about. I suppose, like with most things, people follow some sort of bell-curve in that respect. There are social cues and behaviors that work with most people that just don't work on me. And the people in my life seem to have adopted a Special Ed approach to me, namely: they try to accommodate my oddness and look for ways that will drag me out so I can function in the mainstream world.
Now my experience with Special Ed is limited, but I've worked with some amazing people who have left me with the following impression. There are all kinds of intelligences, strengths, talents, virtues, whatever and we all possess them to varying degrees. Some of us are more than 2 standard deviations from some of the norms. It just is. So I've had students who will sit and look at a test and be completely overwhelmed, but you read them the questions out loud and they're all good. There's absolutely nothing wrong with a kid not being wired for visual/ written learning. There's nothing wrong with noticing that and making a point to read to this kid, maybe even read to the whole class so the ones who are within the norm but still better at processing auditory information can benefit too. I guess the kid's responsibility is to know this and seek the help out in the future, or learn to carry a tape recorder. And I'm perfectly OK with that. In fact it makes me happy to see people looking out for each other (and themselves) like that.
When I try to apply this to me I think the only part that I'm not comfortable with is the "me". Like I'm not supposed to be sub-par, or I'm supposed to be one of the people helping others not being helped, or I'm not supposed to suck energy and resources from the universe. I have trouble seeing past those judgments. And right now, because I'm not working (I NEED to get myself out of the house!) I'm all that I see. I know some of those coping mechanisms that make my life easier. I sometimes implement them.
Tomorrow (now today) I'm going to get on an airplane and go see some friends. I'm going to meet a brand new baby - just the thought of whom already makes me smile and itch to hold his little hand. And I'll watch a girl promise to love and cherish her girl. I even know what I'm going to wear. And somehow I'll write the recommendation letters I promised my former students, and I might even work on that group presentation that I have to do Monday.
* Alluringly close to WinCon. But no.
Oh! And Happy Birthday to innie_darling! You make my Winchester World even cooler than it already was. XD