Being Stupidly Responsible and Three Years Ago on Thanksgiving
So yesterday's post was "Rah! Rah! Opening the center in 4 months! ZOMG!". The last two nights... I have not slept well. I have woken up in a cold sweat, imagining bankruptcy.. or even worse. I have spent the last 48 hours whipping out my calculator and trying to sort out how I was going to raise enough money by April and it wasn't looking great. Now, I am an optimist and I believe things will work out... but raising the amount of money I need in 4 months, while definitely possible, is a little too ambitious even for me. I tossed and turned and this morning at 3, (just an hour before the Kid came tearing into our room screaming and kicking with a fever.. sigh.) I finally came to the conclusion that I need a later deadline.
It was a hard decision for me and it broke my heart, but I have to do this right. Risks are good but not when we have to pay for rent, childcare and therapy. It's not just a situation of tightening our belts (is that the right idiom?) but actually making sure that we can afford to help our own son. "Sorry darling, we can only spend 2 weeks in the Maldives this year. And your third pony is now paste." Yeah, no. So I have been a big girl and I have asked to delay the lease until September. This doubles my time to ask for money and will make me less likely to lose my hair in the process. By asking for an extension, I might have lost the property and if so, I will go into a corner and crawl into fetal position and cry for a couple of weeks. But, and this is where optimism rolls up its sleeves and get to work: if it is meant to be, it is meant to be. Pass me the wine.
I love the location, I love the space, it is perfect, but if I don't have the funding yet, it will become my proverbial horse's head in the bed and I just did laundry. Now it is time to get to work and to go methodically through my to-do list. I have drafted a letter for ministries and it is currently being translated. I am in the process of setting up a business account. In Austria, special accounts open you! Also, a friend also has put me in contact with someone mucho mucho mucho importante in Vienna to give me some guidance... I just made an appointment with his personal assistant and I started sweating on the phone. The meeting is on Monday and let's all take bets that I say something like "Yes, how are you? I got a q-tip stuck in my ear today but boy am I happy to be here.. or hear? Heh heh heh." Ugh. Stay tuned for that story of awkwardness.
Today is American Thanksgiving and for me, it is a very important day for another reason. Three years ago on Thanksgiving, I met with a speech therapist at work in the morning who had observed my son the night before. I had to miss the meeting due to work and when I got home, the Husband told me that she had dire news. I cried most of the night and in the morning, when I looked at the Kid, I felt like I was in mourning. I could not accept autism as his diagnosis... to me he was a regular little boy. This was before our real diagnosis and before he completely regressed. I went to work, met the therapist at the cafe and she pretty much said that his life would never be normal and that he was severely autistic, he would probably need respite care and I should probably consider giving up any thoughts of him going to school or even speaking much. In short, life as I knew it would never be the same. I sat there and I sobbed. I had to go back to work and I couldn't focus on anything. I wrote my dear friend D.K. who was as sick as a dog and I asked if she could meet me at our local cafe after work. Like a superstar she dragged herself there and for 2 hours, I drank wine and I sobbed. I didn't know how I was going to face my son who I loved more than anything in the world. I opened the front door and I walked in, drained and devastated. I put on his favourite DVD and, at one point, he started laughing. It was that sound that made me realize that we were going to get through this... that I would never stop fighting for him and that he was never going to be a statistic. So yes, Thanksgiving is an important day for me. My life has not been the same and that is ok and it is amazing to look back to that day 3 years ago and see how far we have come. There are immense challenges as he gets older, but I am more equipped to handle them... so equipped that instead of you know, taking up a hobby, I try and start an autism center. Totally reasonable reaction, right? So to my American friends, have a splendid holiday! Tonight I will watch some crappy TV, do some crafts and thank my lucky stars for my incredible son. Happy Thanksgiving.
It was a hard decision for me and it broke my heart, but I have to do this right. Risks are good but not when we have to pay for rent, childcare and therapy. It's not just a situation of tightening our belts (is that the right idiom?) but actually making sure that we can afford to help our own son. "Sorry darling, we can only spend 2 weeks in the Maldives this year. And your third pony is now paste." Yeah, no. So I have been a big girl and I have asked to delay the lease until September. This doubles my time to ask for money and will make me less likely to lose my hair in the process. By asking for an extension, I might have lost the property and if so, I will go into a corner and crawl into fetal position and cry for a couple of weeks. But, and this is where optimism rolls up its sleeves and get to work: if it is meant to be, it is meant to be. Pass me the wine.
I love the location, I love the space, it is perfect, but if I don't have the funding yet, it will become my proverbial horse's head in the bed and I just did laundry. Now it is time to get to work and to go methodically through my to-do list. I have drafted a letter for ministries and it is currently being translated. I am in the process of setting up a business account. In Austria, special accounts open you! Also, a friend also has put me in contact with someone mucho mucho mucho importante in Vienna to give me some guidance... I just made an appointment with his personal assistant and I started sweating on the phone. The meeting is on Monday and let's all take bets that I say something like "Yes, how are you? I got a q-tip stuck in my ear today but boy am I happy to be here.. or hear? Heh heh heh." Ugh. Stay tuned for that story of awkwardness.
Today is American Thanksgiving and for me, it is a very important day for another reason. Three years ago on Thanksgiving, I met with a speech therapist at work in the morning who had observed my son the night before. I had to miss the meeting due to work and when I got home, the Husband told me that she had dire news. I cried most of the night and in the morning, when I looked at the Kid, I felt like I was in mourning. I could not accept autism as his diagnosis... to me he was a regular little boy. This was before our real diagnosis and before he completely regressed. I went to work, met the therapist at the cafe and she pretty much said that his life would never be normal and that he was severely autistic, he would probably need respite care and I should probably consider giving up any thoughts of him going to school or even speaking much. In short, life as I knew it would never be the same. I sat there and I sobbed. I had to go back to work and I couldn't focus on anything. I wrote my dear friend D.K. who was as sick as a dog and I asked if she could meet me at our local cafe after work. Like a superstar she dragged herself there and for 2 hours, I drank wine and I sobbed. I didn't know how I was going to face my son who I loved more than anything in the world. I opened the front door and I walked in, drained and devastated. I put on his favourite DVD and, at one point, he started laughing. It was that sound that made me realize that we were going to get through this... that I would never stop fighting for him and that he was never going to be a statistic. So yes, Thanksgiving is an important day for me. My life has not been the same and that is ok and it is amazing to look back to that day 3 years ago and see how far we have come. There are immense challenges as he gets older, but I am more equipped to handle them... so equipped that instead of you know, taking up a hobby, I try and start an autism center. Totally reasonable reaction, right? So to my American friends, have a splendid holiday! Tonight I will watch some crappy TV, do some crafts and thank my lucky stars for my incredible son. Happy Thanksgiving.
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