Waiting for the Light Bulb

Let’s take a trip together down memory lane back to your high school years.  Picture that girl in your grade with tortoise-framed glasses so thick they slant her already almond shaped eyes.  The girl with all A’s, no make-up and the daddy that doesn’t allow boyfriends.  This is the girl that became a young lady right before the days when internet and social media could tell her what a young lady should look or act like.

She was told her whole life how smart she was and how proud she made her family.  This young woman took great pride in academics because that was what she excelled in, what defined her, what maintained her self-confidence and self-esteem.  She set off for college at 17 years old assuming it would be a piece of cake seeing as she never saw a B in her entire high school life.  Then she got an F her first semester.  After tutoring and extra tutoring and late night studying and giving her best … a big fat F.  So she did the only thing she knew how to do, put her head down and got to work.  Ignored the naysayers, and there were many, and worked.  Eight years later she graduated with a doctorate degree and didn’t look back.

This woman had her whole life planned with the highest of expectations for herself and anyone in her closest circle.  Naturally that extended to her first born.  Fast forward 10 years and this woman now has a 10 year old daughter that cannot read or write or count.  A daughter with autism, ADHD and speech delay.  A daughter the medical field and public school system have labeled as intellectually disabled.  Wow.  Let those two words sink in a bit.

This woman now has a unique perspective on this life that came hard earned.  10 years of humbling heartbreak, 10 years of unbelievable frustration, 10 years of putting her head down and working.  Working to understand.  Working to help her daughter.  Working to replace loss with gratitude.  Working to replace niceties with kindness.  Working to replace disappointment with new found wonder.  Working to replace burden with remarkable opportunity.  Working to replace pain with healing.

Now…working to help others do the same.

This woman is M.o.C.h.A. nine.  This woman, is me.  It is officially time to share my story with the world.

My book is titled “Waiting for the Light Bulb: the ramblings of a crazy, gritty mom” and I am overwhelmingly weepy to say it is now available on Amazon in paperback, Kindle edition and Audiobook. 

When you finish reading this book you may hate me, you may love me, but really I just want you to understand me.  To understand me means you will be that much closer to understanding a growing population of parents that have children with special needs who are so desperately NEEDING to be understood.  A growing population of parents that have not been heard.

All of the previous M.o.C.h.A. stories have been between 3000 and 5000 words.  The story I want to tell you is 87,355 words all which required sleepless nights, cathartic episodes, panic attacks, laughing spells and many hours of prayer in order to combine them together and put them on pages in such a way that I know will change you.

So pull up a chair, grab some coffee, just pretend this is one big M.o.C.h.A. session and you are sitting across from me at Starbucks while I pour out my heart.

You may never see the world the same again.