i seem to be in a mood.  contemplative.  sleepy hazy mind drifting contemplative.  borderline resolute.

things that cannot be.  what are they?  do we know?  what is impossible?  what do we really have control over?  lots of little things i suppose.  but those things are seldom the events and circumstances we wish to have control over. 

is this life?  pining and wishing and yearning?  does that ever end?  do we ever say...okay this here is enough.  i wish for nothing more.  nothing more to strive for.  nothing to desire or want.  perhaps the wishing makes life worth living.  but does it have to be so painful? 

and then the ultimate conclusion.  do i not matter enough for some happiness to come in the form that i want it in?

far from my path...i need.  my spiritual side says not to worry about the getting.  give instead.  give because i want to.  giving is the desire. 

i am human.  i will stray from my path and sit down to put my face into my hands...create my own darkness...and cry from want.

It is time for me to begin talking about these synchronicities of mine. Or you can call them whatever you like. My personal meaning of "synchronicity" is that it is a meaningful coincidence. I believe that our life has meaning when we choose to view the events and circumstances of our life in a meaningful way. And yes I suppose I go deeper than this and do also believe in a higher power. I am one of those romantics who believes that things happen for a reason. And no, I don't propose to understand it. I am not envisioning some old guy with a beard playing god and moving us around like chess pieces. I just feel that in my life, and in my experience, I have been given gifts to help me through things. And perhaps you have been given such gifts too if you just look for them. Some gifts will remain invisible until you choose to see them.

A simple synchronicity exists right on my bookshelf. I can see the shelf from here. I am writing from my bed. On my second bottom shelf there are some old paperbacks of mine. Most of these were purchased when I was either a teen or a young adult. The theme is consistent. Some of the titles include: Flowers for Algernon, Lovey, One Child, A Circle of Children, No Language but a Cry, and Dibs in Search of Self. On the same shelf are outdated books about neurology and the brain. One brain book has the front cover torn apart as a symbolic reminder of its non-usefulness in present time.

I grew up in the care of a woman with extreme mental illness. My mother has paranoid schizophrenia. Think of some of the shadow people living in the streets talking to themselves and gesturing violently. And now think of a small child holding the hand of one of those images who conjure fear in most people. I don't wish to paint too dark of a portrait of my mother or our life together. For all her craziness, she was and is a loving and beautiful soul. But I cannot deny the fear and despair I felt as a child and growing up.

My way of coping with fear is through knowledge. When I was a kid I read. I read everything I could get my hands on. I even read encyclopedias. Books became my armor. As a little girl, I would check out adult books about psychiatry, psychology, and the brain. When my much older sister left her college books at our house, I read about human sexuality, politics, and even how to write shorthand. My goal was to fill my brain to a capacity where I could: a. forget my situation and b. help my mother overcome her mental illness. The shorthand books did come to help when I convinced my mother to go to school for training to become a secretary. She never did finish her schooling but for a brief time she was heading towards a goal to get us out of poverty.

The short story is that I never cured my mother from my book studies. And we also remained in poverty for all the time I lived with her. My beloved books could not grant me a rescue from the life I had to live.

However, my books did provide me with blessings and gifts unbeknownst to me at the time.  My quest for knowledge took me to places where I would unknowingly be preparing for a future I could not even begin to fathom.

For some unexplainable reason I began to collect books about special children, particularly those with autism. I had never met a child with autism growing up. There was no evident cause for my interest. Yet every time I would venture into a used bookstore or library, my feet would wander to the section about the stories of children who had mental disabilities.

Know that there is much more to this story to follow chronologically like my sudden educational detour to special education and subsequent career helping those who have mental disabilities. I will certainly flesh out those details at a later time. But isn't it amazing that for some reason I was lured to those books describing children who are like my own son.  My imagination never once conjured my future as I know it now.

The other books I would collect were books about the brain. I loved the books with visual diagrams outlining the function of all the different regions of grey matter. Likewise, I was fascinated by the stories of people who lived with damage to their brain and how they coped. I read about neurology as a new science, full of mystery and the unknown. I have always had my sources of intrigue and the workings of the brain is one.

I glanced at one of my brain books that I had read decades ago about the marvels of Evoked Response Potential testing for Multiple Sclerosis. Did you know they also used such testing for the purpose of predicting the degree of psychopathy in an individual? So not only was this test used to help diagnose MS but also to predict how potentially crazy you could become! So strange that my eyes fell upon those words about tests for MS, so many years ago. And now just a few months ago, I felt the wires and glue stuck to my scalp where I had to undergo this very test. My tester told me the history that I had already known. Evoked Response Potentials used to be one of the only medical tests to predict and diagnose MS decades ago. Now of course we have the MRI and spinal tap. It leaves one to wonder what tests they will create for the future.

What was I thinking so many years ago, reading my books while curled up on a sofa, a big box TV complete with rabbit ears blaring in the background? My interests leaned toward topics which I knew nothing about. I had no experience with children having special needs. I had no neurologists in my family. One might have been quite useful with my mother I'm sure. I certainly didn't know anyone with MS but I was wanting to read about it.

Yet here I am decades later....a mother to a child having special needs....and me having neurological issues labeled as Multiple Sclerosis.

Coincidence? Sure. I mean I also read about a multitude of other subjects. But yet the books I have kept on my bookshelf from home to home have remained the same over these many years. There has been a consistent theme to me and to my life.

It is my belief that I was preparing for things to come. The truth of my belief cannot be proven nor dis proven. Perhaps it is just my way of coping, to think that I am being helped along my way. It certainly is a better alternative than to think the powers that be have a hit man who is out to make my life miserable. Isn't it better to look for the gifts, for the strange but helpful coincidences, and to ascribe meaning to our life than to live in total darkness? I am making a conscious decision to see meaning.

I choose to see meaning for all the chapters of my life. And I will continue to do so for the hopefully many unwritten chapters to come.