I am not an emotional eater. Not at all. If anything, when stress strikes, I tend to *not* eat. And yet, all evening, I have sat here at the table, tapping away on my mother's borrowed laptop and cyber stalking the doctor I'll take Julian to see on Tuesday, eating these chocolate cookie things we call "goober cookies." My Mom used to make them. Now I do. They are really good.

And now it's time for bed. Past my bedtime, in fact. So there's no time for a proper, catch up, "where the fuck have I been?!" post.

So you'll have to settle for these little tidbits until I can focus on a post long enough to sound at least somewhat coherent.

Poverty has caught up with me once again and I have cancelled my home Internet. My computer completely died and since I couldn't afford a new one, an Internet connection was pointless. I only have Internet for a few more days and after that will have to rely on my parents' stolen wifi and quick visits to Troy's house where it is impossible to concentrate on facebook status updates, let alone entire blog posts. But I'll be sniffing around here and there and with any luck, by Spring, I'll be up and running once again.

It's really just as well.

I haven't been much company lately.

It has been a most chaotic and crazy and tearful couple of weeks since my last post and all of these things have made me really, really self absorbed.

Julian goes to Kingston on Tuesday. This is huge. Gigantic. And with that, scary. And stressful. And oh my goodness, if you're the praying type, could you please say a prayer for my little guy? A prayer of thanks for what the Universe has already given us? A prayer that he will get a proper diagnosis and with it, proper supports? A prayer that this new doctor will get to the root of Julian's struggles and be able to decipher what he has been trying to tell us for almost four years?

And if you're not the praying type...well, you can still hope, right? I mean, I know that praying is reserved for the believers but hoping is still fair game, isn't it? So maybe... just maybe...you could hope that a good thing will happen for a little boy that needs it....

I have lived and breathed the preparations that have gone into this trip to Kingston. It's about three or four hours away and it will require an overnight stay for the girls, Troy, Julian and I. I have faxed off every document I could get my hands on. I have filled out psycho forms and am ready to fax those, too. The hotel is booked. I have a borrowed GPS for the drive.

And I have read.

Oh my good Dog, I have read like there is no tomorrow. Right now I am reading Temple Grandin's "Thinking In Pictures" and her mother's book, "A Thorn In My Pocket".

I have pulled Runes.

I always get the warrior.

I have dreamed of having that symbol (an arrow) tattooed next to the word "Courage" which is already inked into my right forearm.

I have woken, after that dream, to see an arrow drawn on the dry erase board on the girls' bedroom wall.

The warrior.

There has been much going on in between.

Stuff that has made me laugh. And a lot that has made me cry. And I have said, many times over, "I can't do this anymore."

But all of those things have seemed somehow insignificant in the wake of this upcoming appointment. And I have felt a sort of resentment when one of these other stressors have required my attention.

Maybe what I need now, more than anything else, is a prayer for strength. For the courage to find my inner warrior, one more time, for my little guy. I'm not a natural warrior. I'm more of a "flight over fight" kinda gal. So maybe that's what I'll ask for....

Strength.

It's funny, isn't it? The silly things that stand out.

My last post had the same title as this post in part because I have listened to that Akon and MJ song literally dozens of times since that first time in the music store that is now closed.

Troy bought it for me.

A few days before Christmas, he was listening to some shitty mixed CD his sister gave him. I was serving dinner. He disappeared downstairs and came up and put the MJ CD on without my noticing (dinner is a very hectic time in this house).

I was standing at the counter when I heard the unmistakeable sound of Michael's voice.

And I lost it.

Like sobbing, crying, blubbering, can't catch your breath, losing it.

I have listened to that song over and over again ever since. It has become my talisman on this journey.

Hold my hand.
Baby, I promise that I'll do all I can.
Things will go better if you just hold my hand.
Nothing can come between us.
If you just...
Hold my, hold my, hold my hand.

I seemed to have lost myself...or a piece of myself, anyway...along this journey. That's that thing that parents of special needs children aren't so quick to tell you. It seems almost necessary to lose yourself in order to become the warrior they need. Or maybe not. Maybe that's just me.

But for me, it has become nearly impossible to hold onto any remnants of who I used to be in the light of this next stage.

Hm. I just read that sentence over again and realized that maybe I haven't lost a piece of myself. Maybe I needed to shed that skin of the former me in order to become who I am today. The mother that Julian needs at this point. And maybe I'll be a better, changed person for having lived this sordid tale.

Hope springs eterenal, as they say.

Some day, I will sit here and write the whole thing out. It's a bit like a crummy Law and Order episode. Or maybe even a CSI or Criminal Minds. Some day, maybe I'll turn it into a book.

But for right now, I will just try to access that inner warrior.

I know she's in there.

She just needs some sleep.

On that note...

Good night all.