9.17.2011

Exiting Orbit

There are so many ways that I could explain that last few years. They have been full of chaos, many things that were unexpected and harder than anything we ever could have imagined. There has also been unimaginable joy, laughter and some of the most amazing people along the way. I suppose it might be best to sum it up as quite the adventure. It made me think of the movie Space Camp.  We were just a couple of kids, excited to sit in the shuttle during a test when boom, that wasn't supposed to happen and before we knew what hit us, we were in outer space. We spent all of our time talking in acronyms like OT, PT, SLP, IEP, GI, LPCH, AAC and mls. As our daughter slowly disappeared before our eyes we just sort of slipped into the land of doctors and disability. We blinked and three years had gone by. We were going to run out of supplies, be it patience, energy or any of our resources, we were burning through it all at adventure rate and that wasn't sustainable. We grieved good and hard and then started to fight our way back. We started with small victories like our finances and then moved onto larger obstacles like how to spend our time, grappling with our faith and eventually we got to the monster in the closet, rett.  It has been exhausting to do so much hard work. I can see why people choose to continue to live in chaos, it is really hard to get out of. The month of August was the real reentry for us. I felt the excitement of getting back to normal but first had to get back into the atmosphere without burning up in the process. Once that happened and I had my feet on the ground it took a while to readjust to having gravity and all the other trappings of this world. Slowly it is all syncing and even running relatively smoothly. I sometimes even have entire days with not a single catastrophe. As I sit here and type this, Captain Awesome is clear on the other side of the country sitting on the edge of a different ocean than the ocean I was on today. I was a little nervous about getting to be the sole parent and grown up in the house for six days. Now with two days done, I can sit back and enjoy it. This must be what other people do, hold the fort down while their spouse occasionally travels. I am looking forward to things more than ever, now that we have safely landed and gotten our feet back on the ground. The whole adventure sure has given me a different perspective on living both in and out of orbit and for that I am grateful, but I really do hope to stay here for a while. On a side note, if I haven't returned an email or kept in better contact over the last few months, thank you for understanding. Things did get pretty crazy as I came back down and I look forward to keeping in better contact with you all now that I am back. 

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