As good as it gets; Fairy tales don't always have a happy ending

I have been struggling lately. The test results show my son is severely retarded. I vasicillate between thinking they are so full of shit, no child this mischievous, this curious, this empathetic; that cureous george's struggles bring tears to his 3 year old eyes, this brilliant, willful, beautiful boy could not possibly be retarded. this my boy, my only child, as I cannot have anymore children, my one shot, cannot possibly be retarded. And yet, he rides the short bus.

Those of you who have followed my travails know that i have struggled to leave my son's emotionlly abusive sperm donor, and have moved on to a series of men, each of whom has provided a piece of what I seek, emotional, intellectual, playful, fun-loving, passionate, hard-working, great father, provider, artist. And each time, all has come crashing down. Each has helped me to get up each day, to renew my fith in life and love. And each has decided that my life is too hard.

And I have gone back to taking out my own trash. I have gone back to all the pickups and al the weekends alone, and all of the terrifying medical appointments, the parent teacher conferences, the benign, mundane, ran out of juiceboxes on a school night, seizures in the middle of class, asthma attacks that render him gulping, wierd off balance days where he walks into walls and I wonder, ear infection or crippling stroke.

I have fought my college, financial aid, department of social services, early intervention, doctors, the school district. I have skipped work to go to class and class to make up work. I have prayed that neither would ever figure it out.

I have also acted my age, and then slept it off, run it off, to make pancake day special.

I hit rock bottom after the latest wonderful man who helped me through, who held me up, who I wowed with my wackiness and desire to experience life. Our first real date, I snuck out of a laidback party to go bridgejumping because I felt winter approaching in my bones and I knew the water would be to cold, too swift soon for me to jump and swim, so I jumped and then, buck naked and shivering, I jumped again, because I felt my time running out, and there was a responsible party to lifeguard my insane desire to not submit fully to uber-responsibiity just quite yet. and we had a beautiful romance. He got me into triathlons, and mountain biking.

Glorious mountain biking, the precious two hours a week where the neuroise, worry, fear, panic, give way to shear concentration on where I will ride. I can only focus on the rocks, "the line" , where I will ride, because if I let my mind wander to what if, whatmight happen, how will i ever....I hit a rock and lay myself out on rocks.

I look like I've been hit by a car from the waist down. My wonderful midwife who delivered my complicated, difficult birth emotionally, spitrually without a hitch, but sighed with relief when he breathed as the nurses exclaimed that he wouldn't have lived another day inside of me. An incredible birth for both of us, so many unresolved emotional scars and battles that can only be undone with the shear illuminative process of birth,

--asked me at my last appointment if I was in an abusive relationship because of all the bruising. I just laughed, the healthiest relationship I have is with the mountains, the trails, the rocks and trees that draw my blood and remind me that I am here. Yeah, I said, I'm in an abusive relationship with mself, but really with the medical profession with the fat stack of medical files that threaten to overtake my life and extinguish the flame of hope I have for my son, for the happy ending, I pursue relentlessly.

And back i went, to my midwife three years since his birth, because i could not bear to tell anyone else, that I will not indeed be able to "do it right", to create life with someone that I love and respect and admire,

that apparently, I had my shot. I cannot have any more children. Because, he is as good as it gets. At 19, the biologically ideal age, my body produced a child who is missing part of his brain, who has and probably will suffer from seizures, and a nice genetic metabolism disorder that noone has ever heard of, that noone know how to treat except to tell me that I cannot have any other children. The state will not pay for some medical treatments that might help my gorgeous boy full of potential, but they don't mind paying for testing that will convince me not to have another child.

and so I hit. I fulfilled my dreams, and all of my promises to my unborn child, that I would graduate college, that i would uy us a house with a picket fecne.

I graduated, i bough the house, the fence is going in nect week, in part thanks to a grant for environmental modifications for "developmentally delayed children".

I vcillate between there is nothing wrong with my child, and everything wrong with theis fucking world and the tests they choose to judge him with, to
"My kid rides the short bus. I must be in denial"

And I dumped the latest and greates of my life thus far because he found things to be "to hard." I cried to my mother. She asked if I had ever seent he move "As Good as It Gets", because that's aparently what I should accept, some crazy Jack Nicholson who is a really terrible tipper."

And I dumped him and felt more alone than I have ever felt. And it's okay cuz I'm the only one I'll ever need, well me and the boy.

So I pushed harder, biked farther, more often, even my son said, "Mama, go bike." because he realized that I cam back more whole,hopeful, able, believing in the world again.

Even my wonderful, crazy, optimistic shrink began to doubt. I asked him, who wil ever love a single mother? a single mother with a child with special needs? that cant have anymore children?

and he said that that might not be the issue. The issue might be how intelligent and self-sufficient I am, like the postcard I have that says "Oh my god, I think I'm becoming the man I wanted to marry!"

I can put in pantry shelves from a few digital pics, when I can't even find a stud with a studfinder, I can dig a trench and keep the water out of the basement, I can provide for my family, i can love my son and do pancake breakfasts and rock professionally, simultaneously, but that does not mean I like it alone.
My shrink told me to dream, so I had a beer, said fuck it and dreamed.

And against all odds, I met a guy. A wonderful amazing, sexy, cute, intellectual, artistic spiritual guy, who was going back "home" the next day, and so I took what I could get. kind hands, kind eyes. that didn't know my story, that though I was some random college coed. I drank him in with my fingertips, my lips, my tongue, my eyes, knowing that I had to be home by 8 am for pancake day. I'll take what I can get, a sojourn, moment in the sun, a repreive, respite from the day to day, focus, like mountain biking I told myself, just be [resent, because he'll be gone by tomorrow.

But he wasn't gone, and miraculously I got babysitting for a saturday and my beautiful son was happy to see the glorious loving extended family I've created for him, and so i went.

Again, it was glorious, to bask in the afection, the glow of someone who sees the non-mama apart of me, and doesn't really truly understand that it's the mama part that makes me glorious. I mentioned it, but of course, ir didn't sink in.

The next day, same thing, off I went into the barely dawn and transformed back into uber responible, but I had just lept with a man, but more importantly, I had just slept with my former or future self. And I couldn't shake it.

a few days later, he was still in town and my compartmentalization crumbled. we played hooky. Made love before we left, and I felt safe, taken care of, of course, in a way that noone has been able to do in years. Glorius day.

we got back from this amazing date that renewed my faith in there being someone out there for me. We're laying on the couch and I was quoting a conversation my son and I had had, and he said, wow, he said all that? and I said, well, he signed it really. We speak mostly in sign language.

"Oh, sign language, like this? (He raised his right limp wrist to his left shoulder ,like that cruel sign for the retarded kids used in middle school.)"

And I hit him. I haven't hit anyone in 8 years, and bfore that never, but I backhanded him hard in the face, without thinking. He had no idea about my son, he knew he had "issues" but had no idea that I have been battling the world for 3years, for a place for my son that doesn't include the word "retarded".

To him I was just a "hot intellectual girl" that had just backhanded him for a mildly offensive joke. So I pausd, and he said, you hit me. And I said, you called my kid retarded., I think I was more stunned than him. I had no idea how close to the surface all this shit was for me. i had to leavce to pick up my son.

I was devastated. I had finally found a man who could keep up, intellectually, emotionally, sexually, and i felt I had been slapped in the face, but really, I had slapped him, and he was leaving for the city the next day. Great parting memeory.