Chapters are excerpts from a book I may or may not ever publish.  There are many more chapters where they came from.  Here are some funny ones that I think others may relate to. Or Not! That's ok too!

I have written before that I am not a hopeful person.  I am realizing more and more that I actually am, my picture of hope is just different than others' might be.  If you try, you are hopeful.  If you want, you are hopeful. I am just not an eternally positive happy person like my husband.  He has positiveness shooting out of every orifice in his body.  It is amazing and annoying at the same time.  I am more like a piece of lasagna.  I have layers of hope, they are different but there. It has taken me hitting the bottom to realize I actually have this good character trait. 

I hope that peace, balance and the space between will find me. I think that this is the key to life. I have a teeny idea how to get here and no idea how to stay there. It seems like it should be so easy. It is so logical. It is like common sense. Except it escapes most of us, especially me and seems to be more rare than common. 

My entire life has been “All or nothing”. There hasn’t been the space between. I used to be a pharmaceutical sales representative a long time ago. One time one of my teammates and I were talking about ‘All or Nothing’ and the space between in the form of passion.  
He said “Danielle you have more passion in your little finger than I have in my entire body. This is what I love about you. However this is why I could never be with you.” 
This character trait is great to have but has a down side too. This is one of my major flaws, a crack in my universe. Passion to me is what I call “big love”. It is akin to loyalty to the bone, huge hugs, fight to the death sort of thing. It is also that loyalty that breeds anxiety in the form of an argument or  telling the truth and saying things like they are; calling a spade a spade. That is the down side. Everyone wants to be on the good side of passion. There is no “space between” if you have passion. Not for me at least. All or nothing right?
My partner then said, “I was thinking if I could tone down some of the deep passion in you (meaning me) it would be great! Then I thought, that would be changing who you are which isn’t fair because the world needs people like you with passion”.
What a nice thing to say right? 

The challenge is to mesh the good and bad and find the space between.  To find my true self, to be whole in the space between and not to be all or nothing. The space between love and hate, happy and sad, drunk and sober, good and evil, rich and poor, republican and democrat, man or woman, normal or atypical, gay or straight, religious or not....you get the point.  I truly believe in the space between it all is where true love of self, others, tolerance, kindness, compassion and hope lies. 

 Oh how I wish there was an express elevator to get there, you know the ones where you can skip all the floors and shoot up into the sky straight to your floor like at the "old" Sears tower in Chicago?  You go from the 1st floor to the 98th floor in under 2 minutes and skip all the floors in between.  Yeah your head wants to explode and your eardrums feel like someone is pumping air into them like a Nike shoe in the 1980's, but you end up in the sky on the 103rd floor eventually amazed and in awe.

If there was that elevator, if it was that easy, it wouldn't be life. We wouldn't learn.  We wouldn't bleed. We wouldn't hurt.  We wouldn't cry or grieve or even truly be happy or sad.  Because we would have missed the building blocks that enable us to see the space between.  Or want it, or need it, or HOPE for it.  Now it may sound like I have found this beautiful nirvana and I know what the hell I am talking about.  HA! I have seen glimmers of it. I hope for it.  I believe in it.  I want it.  In some ways, some days I have managed it for about 1 minute.  I believe you can reach it at times and lose it at times.  In parts of your life you can touch it and in others it seems impossible. But you can always want it, always work for it, always dream of it, always HOPE for it.  

This is my journey of being so lost that I can cry so hard and look in the mirror and the pain I see in my own face and tears from eyes that are so deep and dark and heartbreaking and gut wrenching, I can't even look at myself.  I break my own heart.  But I have HOPE. So I fight and this is my journey of being lost and found and lost and found and trying to find the space between. I hope it helps someone else struggling with addiction, anxiety, depression, hormonal issues, autism, adhd, learning disabilities, marriage, loss and life.  Maybe, just maybe I might end up helping myself if I am lucky. 

I think every parent of a child with special needs should be presented with a pair of gold hedge trimmers. They can provide a relief that exercise, chocolate or wine can’t give.

Here is the story. One Thursday I was speeding to get Kate to a friends’ house to drop her off so I can get Alex to Therapy because I can’t take her with. I am running late because I can’t get Alex to put his socks and shoes on, which is another painful but funny story that will come later. Well, I get pulled over of course and get a speeding ticket which for the rest of my life I will never hear the end of. Now every day, every car ride, anywhere Alex and Kate ask, “Mom are you driving the speed limit?” ugh.

I have to go to court for my speeding ticket and am supposed to be there at 9:30. I had promised Alex that I would bring him McDonald’s for lunch that day. It didn’t even register to me that I might not make his 12:00 lunch. Evidently, they do all the cases first and speeding tickets last. I am sweating and freaking out because it is 11:30 and my name hasn’t been called yet. The courthouse is at least 20 minutes from school and I have to get the McDonalds’. I realize I am not going to make it. My son will not have lunch. My world starts crashing in because I am trapped. I am in a courtroom so I can’t even text or call anyone to let them know and I can’t leave until my name has been called. I am trapped and my beautiful son with Autism will have no lunch. He has money in his lunch account. The same amount has been there for 2 years. He is too afraid to go through the lunch line so he will sit there and just be hungry.  

My name finally gets called and I get to leave. It is 12:05. I get in my car and start speeding to the school. Wait what? I can’t speed!! I just left the court house for a speeding ticket! So I am driving painfully slow at 35 miles per hour and I call the school and ask them to get him something to eat. They told me he said, “I dont’ want anything my mommy is coming and bringing me McDonalds’”. Oh my heart. I can’t get there before his lunch is over. I immediately deploy my mother-in-law to rush and get food and take it to him. She is on it. She got there about 5 minutes before the end of lunch. Alex sat there the entire lunch period not eating and holding it together. I called both the school and my MIL and told them I would be there in 10 minutes and to let him stay in the lunch room until I get there. My poor boy, he is skin and bones and I call him my baby bird because he has zero body fat so he needs to eat!

I rush in at 12:40 and Alex and my MIL are sitting at a table alone talking and eating. Bless my MIL’s heart she is doing her best to keep it light. As soon as Alex sees me I hug him and he just loses it and starts crying. “Why were you so late mama, I was so hungry?”. I held him for 10 minutes and he finished his lunch and finally went back to class. God I love that kid.

I went home pissed, angry, mad, sad, devastated, frustrated with myself. I was so mad that I didn’t think to pack a lunch just in case I was late. That will never happen again. I needed to take out my fury and it was a beautiful day and we needed some gardening done. I found the hedge trimmers.

Hours later,  my arms were sore and numb and still vibrating from the hedge trimmers. My back and neck hurt and I took a survey of my work. Well, I might have gone overboard because it looked like a tornado ripped out all of our landscaping. I felt so much better than I would If I ran a marathon or had a bottle of wine. I was empty of anger and sadness, our yard was scalped and I had accomplished something. Hedge Trimmers are a beautiful thing until your husband comes home and says “Oh, My God, what happened to our yard?”!

Oh the socks.  For all of those parents out there with kids with Autism or on the spectrum, (which is 1 in 66 by the way) I gotta tell you parenting a child with special needs is brutal.  It is so, hard and frustrating and painful, irritating, annoying and every other adjective I can think of.  Now some people will criticize and judge me because they would never say that about their kids. Listen, no one is perfect. Not me or my kids.  If i could, I would choose to make his life easier in a million different ways.  Normal life is hard enough! I would choose to make putting on his socks, everyday,  NOT an excruciating event for him.  Why socks you ask?

Ever since Alex started wearing shoes and socks so at about 2 years old he was miserable and I didn’t know why.  Remember me telling you about the grocery store incident? Here is the reference why our journey started off so badly. As soon as Alex  learned he could take his shoes and socks off he did at every opportunity.  Every time I put him in the car, he would immediately take them off.  I think I spent 2 years of my life just picking up shoes and socks and putting them back on that child.

In an effort to try to figure out why I bought every sock know to mankind.  I bought target socks, walmart socks, socks from children place, gymboree, the grocery store, athletic socks, soccer socks any color or different sock I could find that might solve the problem.  I probably spent close to $1,000 on freakin socks (definitely an exaggeration but you get the point).  I couldn’t figure out the problem.  Until one day I had a random conversation with a child I didn’t know.

We had flown to Chicago to see my niece and nephews for a weekend. (Yes we were on the ‘Good list’) The boys were 8 at the time I think, so Alex must of been 4 or 5 years old.  So I had been fighting the good fight day in and out for the better part of 3 years to no avail. The boys had their friend over Drew.  It was winter time so he was of course wearing socks and shoes.  He came into my brothers house and I introduced myself.  I looked down and noticed that his socks were inside out so I said to him, “Do you know your socks are inside out?”

Drew looked down at his feet and said, “Yeah.  The seam bothers me so I wear them inside out.”

 OMG.    Honest to god, that was the answer?  All I had to do was turn Alex’s socks inside out?  3 years of hell solved in one interaction? Are you kidding me? Yep.  Worked first time out.  Problem solved.  I couldn’t wait to get home, bag up all of the socks and drive them to Goodwill.  Good riddance.  When I handed the bag to the employee at Good will (it was an unreasonably large bag) he asked me, “what is in here”.  I replied, “Socks, all socks”.  He looked at me like I had 2 heads and said “this entire bag is filled with socks?”.  “Yes sir it is, have a good day!”  I then proceeded to drive home with Alex in the backseat with his shoes and socks on the entire way home. Ahhhhhhh.

On the Wednesday before school got out 2 years ago, there was a 4:05 Nationals vs Cubs baseball game.  I am from Chicago so of course up until my son developed a love for baseball, I was a cubs fan.  I decided to pull Alex from school with his friend and have an "awesome mom day and “make magic happen”.  So off we went on the Metro (subway system) down to the Nationals stadium.  Just me and the boys. We had great day.  It was hot but we had great seats down the right field line.  We had Bryce Harper in view at all times, my  son’s favorite player.

We had so much fun, we got hotdogs and peanuts and slushies and smiled and laughed.  Then the excitement began.  There was a first foul ball from another player that landed just in front of us.  Then Bryce Harper got up to bat and hit a foul ball in out direction!  Let me digress for a minute, I played softball for 14 years.  This is very hard to admit considering the next sequence of events!  The ball came flying at me, which I swear was 300 miles an hour.  There were people screaming and cheering and arms flailing and waving all over the place.  It was really hard to keep focused on the ball.  The ball came directly at me, hit my hands but didn’t catch it. My face did, rather my nose. The ball bounced of my nose and polycarbonate sunglasses and down to the ground.  Another man picked it up and gave it to another child.  I screamed ‘NO” that is my ball!  Everyone was looking at me with wide eyes and a bit of terror.  At first it was because I probably looked like I was going to freak out if I didn’t get that ball and I had blood all over my face.  I was about to freak out not about the blood because I didn’t know this yet.  I was so laser focused on that ball and full of adrenaline that I couldn’t even feel it..yet.  Then man then got the ball back and put it in my son’s glove.  We got the ball.  We got a Bryce Harper Ball..amen, hallelujah, malzetov.  Then I lost it.  I started bawling because I was so happy that my son was so happy all I could do is sit there and cry.  The crowd thought it was because my nose was broken.  It was because I can't fix Autism but dammit, I can use my face to get a Bryce Harper foul ball for him.  The team made me go to the first aid station but I knew my nose was broken and there was nothing they could do about it.  Plus, I was the only adult with the boys so I just said Im fine, sucked it up and we stayed for another 2 innings before heading home.  Once we got back on the Metro for the ride home, I realized just how much my face hurt!  Later that night I got a text from a neighbor who happened to record the game.  She was able to hit the pause button and take a picture of the tv screen.  The boys made it on TV!

After the broken nose incident, I had taken my son to another game and we sat right above the nationals bullpen, which turns out are some of the best seats in the house.  You get to see the entire field, watch the pitchers warm up and you are in the shade!

On September 11th, 2016 we had free tickets to the Nationals game.  However they were in the outfield and the bleachers sitting in the hot sun.  Well, since Alex had been spoiled by section 138 in the shade, he decided when he woke up that we weren’t going to use those tickets.  He always wakes up about 6:30-6:45 and comes downstairs by himself and watches his computer with his chocolate milk.  He did the same thing this morning except he was a bit more industrious.  When I came down at 7:15 bleary eyed dreaming of my first up of coffee, Alex says to me, “Mom, guess what?  I went onto Stubhub and bought tickets in section 138 for today’s Nationals game.  I tried 2 of daddy’s credit cards and they didn’t work but the third one did”!  He was so proud.  My eyes were as big as saucers and I was instantly awake.  No coffee needed.  I took a deep breath to slow down my thoughts and emotions and smother my panic.  I thought to my self, “Ok Danielle, think.  What questions do you ask first, keep them simple.”

My first question was, “Bud, how much did the tickets cost”.  He replied, “They were $11 each plus some taxes and stuff”.  Whew. Next question.  

“Bubba, how many did you buy?”

“Only 2 mom, one for me and one for you”.

Awwww. Whew…OMG.

My 9 1/2 year old son took liberty to go online, use my hubby’s log in information, correctly enter a credit card and purchase something.  What if the tickets would have been $300 each?  The shit would have hit the proverbial fan.  It didn’t need to because it was only $33. So I calmly explained to him the rules about purchasing things and tried to keep my husband from freaking out.  I was actually impressed.  Good show of skills my son.  You know how to order something online when my mother-in-law doesn’t!  My husband wasn’t as thankful for the skills or my humor and he had had his coffee.

As it turns out it was another epic mom day.  It was beautiful out in the low 80’s with a breeze and we were able to watch many tributes to the 9/11 victims and their families and see the U.S Navy perform, jets fly over, bagpipes playing “God Bless America”.  It was a great opportunity to teach him about 9/11 and teach him about respecting our flag and respecting our freedom and our military and service people.  I was so proud to be wearing red, white and blue, at the Nation’s capital baseball stadium, with the Nationals on 9/11. 

By the way, I got another ball :), but this time I didn’t have to use my face!