Moon Boots

That's the first thing I remember about CP.  Moon Boots.  How do you get your two-year-old to think it's "fun" to wear braces? You find a funny nick-name for them.  I don't remember much about this, but what I do remember is that they were heavy.  So heavy I could barely lift them up.
Now I wasn't walking at the time, so I don't know anything beyond a vague sense of fear as I sat staring down these immense, dark-blue plaster monsters.  I hated them, can I just say that?  Hated them.  Still do I think.  They were my first square.  My first battle line drawn in the sand.  It was me - and CP.  I was a warrior before I even knew it.

Warriors get tired.  Optimism is necessary.  "Moon boots" were too.  I thank my mother for her never-ending joyousness.  For teaching me that things that are daunting and miserable on the surface can always have a silver lining.

I wore many different moon boots over the years.  Haven't had a pair in a decade.  It strikes me as odd that my husband has never seen me in a pair.  Public perception of moon boots?  Private thoughts about them?  I think I've always like they were a larger part of my identity than anyone else ever did.

Maybe that's how the CP is too.

I don't know, but I'd like to figure it out, and have the courage to believe what I find.

So Much to Write?

I feel like I have made so many New Year's resolutions that require me to write.  I'm going back on weight watchers, so I'm writing down everything that I eat.  I'm trying to be more financially responsible, so I'm writing down everything I spend.  I earn my living in a way that requires me to write down earnings and schedules, so that's another book.  I spend my free time working at the job that doesn't pay me yet...i. e. composing my music

I write down my feelings and thoughts about my performing (or lack thereof) which is again, my own fault.  In this time of the year where we all are vowing to start fresh, make better choices, be better friends, spouses, partners, lovers, mothers, fathers and whatever else we can squeeze into what we wish was a 24 hour day, I feel like I need to stop writing and breathe...

I want to think about how I got here...not to be on a journey or a path, but rather to assemble a patchwork of sorts, so that when the pieces are put together - they make me who I am and who I'm not, what I'm proud of and what I wish I could hide, what I have and what I lack - but most of all - they make me happy.

Please bear with me as I unravel this quilt, already so long and yet with so many unfinished squares.

At the center are my three men, my music, and that darn f***ing elephant.

Here I am

So...I don't do anything electronic unless I have to.  I was among the last of my friends to get a cell phone, I still don't check my personal e-mail every day (although I'm trying to get better) and I only text if I have to.  Now you're telling me (or I'm telling myself) that I have to try to do THIS every day!  Yes!!  I hope I will...I think I will.  At least I'd like to try.

I'm a mom and a wife.  I'm a music teacher.  I'm a composer and an opera singer.  These are all things I am actively creating, pursuing and refining every day.  The "elephant (or maybe not) in the room" is that I was diagnosed with spastic diaplegic cerebral palsy when I was eighteen months old. 

I really don't want this to be like every other typical blog that a busy working mother might create.  I'm also fairly certain (though I confess to not being totally with it on the blogging scene), that there must be thousands of people who have started blogs because they are disabled.  I guess I'm here to share my thoughts and experiences as a disabled mother of two young, very active boys with those who care to listen, share and maybe have a laugh every so often too.  I want to know if there are others "out there" like me.  How cliche does that sound?  Sometimes I feel like there have to be, and sometimes I feel like there are not.

I never really thought I would be so lucky as to have everything that I do.  Nor did I ever think there would still be so much that is so difficult for me to attain.  Not for the normal everyday reason.

More on all of this soon.