Fighting Disappointment

I planted a little money tree in my yard.  I watered it and imagined the awesome things that would come with it.  Maybe I could buy a fancy car!  Ahh...it would solve all my problems.

As luck would have it, it was actually a lemon tree.  This wasn't what I wanted!  I thought about chopping it down and shaking my fist at the sky at my terrible luck. Then I realized, we could give lemons to the neighbors to help make them healthier.  We could start a lemonade stand and teach Samantha how to run a little business.  Perhaps lemons aren't so bad after all.

This is obviously a metaphor about how it seems my best laid plans can so often turn to dust.  Today was no different.  Our plan today was to have Tyler and a staff member meet us for some Mexican food.  We looked forward to spending some time with Tyler after a successful few minutes with him on Sunday.  

About lunch time I got the text....staff is short due to the illnesses going around.  We would be better to postpone until next week.  I considered that we can always just go pick him up from the house and take him ourselves.  As soon as I thought about that, I also thought that he hasn't been transported by us in nearly 18 months.  Would he find that to be confusing? I also considered that we would be dropping him back off to his house for the first time. Could that bring anxiety from his first night rushing back to him all over again?  Someone took lemons off my tree and threw them at my head.

The story could end there, and I could go outside and kick at the dirt.  But today's experience showed me that we have an area of opportunity to improve.  If we work with Tyler gradually over the next few visits, perhaps we can introduce him to riding with staff in our car, and hopefully work him up to short trips without staff at all.  Jumping in with both feet is too risky for now, but what we can do is find a way to put ourselves in a better position for down the road.

Its the essence of special needs caregiving.  We feel like there are forces just waiting for us to make a plan so they can bugger it all up.  The only way I can defeat that is to identify what part of the plan we can change to prevent it from happening in the future.  What can I do differently to increase our odds of success.  In this case if we can get Tyler comfortable with us taking him out and bringing him back without staff, we can increase our visits .

Living life today can be hard.  Being a parent today can be a roller coaster.  Being a special needs parent or caregiver today can be brutal.  As impossible at it may seem sometimes, and regardless of how often we are ducking those lemons, we have to open our minds and use our imaginations to turn them into lemonade.  There is a saying that goes "success is the best revenge".  Turn back your disappointments and setbacks by turning them into successes.

Be well and God bless.   Tom