Inside Me

Inside me I am the little girl who knocked out her two front teeth when she was three.  For years I was teased that all I wanted for Christmas was my two front teeth.

Inside me is a 40 year old woman who knows that good things come to those who wait, that the best gifts aren’t always wrapped in fancy packages, and Christmas isn’t about what we want but what God’s Son came to Earth to give to us.


Inside me I am the little girl who wanted to be a mommy, ballerina, a fashion designer, a rock star, a veterinarian, a teacher, and a doctor.

Inside me is a 40 year old woman who knows that I did not lack ambition to achieve all of my goals, but rather with exposure to new information and changing life circumstances, I was better able to choose my path along the way of this journey called life.


Inside me is the 7 year old little girl who still grieves from being locked out of the house because she didn’t come home when her mother asked, finding her favorite nightgown with the tiny pink rosebuds and the pink satin bow neatly folded with potted plant and a note reading “since you like it better somewhere else, you can find a new place to live.”

Inside me is a 40 year old woman who recognizes that her mother struggled with an alcoholic husband and in doing so feared her daughters probably did prefer other peoples’ homes where the aroma of liquor was not in the air and the nightly arguments did not fill the rooms with frightening sights and sounds sending her daughters huddling behind the red rocking chair clinging to each other crying. Inside me is a woman who recognizes that this was a desperate mother’s attempt to keep her daughters at home even if it was by scaring them or making them feel guilty.


Inside me is the thirteen year old girl who starved herself till she turned blue by eating only 200 calories a day for four months so that she could get thin quick and so that the kids at school would not have a reason to call her “buffalo butt” anymore.

Inside me is a 40 year old woman who believes that unpleasant words and unpleasant behavior is far worse than an unpleasant outer appearance.  Inside me is the woman who knows that we never know what a person is dealing with when we look at them.  The things we say to people and the things we do to them may seem trivial or small, but when added to what they are already coping with, it may be the one thing that causes their cup to run over.


Inside me is the sixteen year old girl who dumped her alcoholic father’s booze down the drain and then tried to rouse him from his face down, passed out state in the drive way only later to be told to go away and die.

Inside me is a 40 year old woman who is told by some people that it was the alcohol talking when he said that. But, I wonder if there was ever a time when my father thought about saying he was sorry, thought about putting his daughters before the booze, or if he ever thought about me at all.


Inside me is the twenty year old who lived out of her car for a summer because her college roommate bullied her so severely, living out of laundry baskets and looking for a couch to sleep on was better than living with cruelty, intimidation, and fear.

Inside me is a 40 year old woman who realizes that houses aren’t always homes, sometimes a place you visit feels like more of a home than the place you call your own, not everyone who says they are your friend means it, and having courage—not running from adversity but challenging it --is very important.


Inside me is a woman in her early thirties, mother of Noah.  It took five years of fertility concerns to have him.  Noah’s preschool teachers said there is something wrong with him.  The children in class did not play with him.  We did not get invited to the mother-child play groups or birthday parties.  We wanted the neighborhood kids to play at our house.  They stopped riding their bikes in front of our house just to say, “We’re not going to play with you, just so you know.”  I rearranged my living room furniture so I did not have to watch them play outside through my front window but when that didn’t work, I put up blinds and kept them closed all the time.  It hurt too bad to know my son was not included in their play.

Inside of me is a 40 year old woman who still lives on that same street and realizes that the pitfalls that Noah had socializing in the neighborhood and my emotional reaction to them robbed Nicholas of his opportunity.  Because of that, Nicholas suffers from loneliness … having a brother who is not neurologically available as a playmate and neighborhood kids who are established in their social groupings.


Inside me is a woman in her mid-thirties, mother of Noah and Nicholas, soccer coach, president of the PTO, Scholastic Book Fair Chairperson, Cub Scout Den Leader, Soccer Coach, Autumn Harvest Carnival Chair Person, substitute teacher, reader and researcher about all things Asperger’s Syndrome, provider of at home speech and occupational therapy services, and holder of in-home whole class social events.  I tried to create a safe place for my son and for myself.  A place where no one would know there was anything wrong, where people would think my son just had some quirks.  But the kids at school said, “No one in class really likes Noah” and my best friend said, “So, you had to go off and drag my kid down with yours” when  I asked the scoutmaster to put one of my sons so-called friends in his patrol as he became a boy scout.

Inside of me is a 40 year old woman who realizes that it is not my fault that my son has Asperger’s Syndrome and that despite all the efforts that I made to help him and me, the only person I had control over in the end was me.   My son is always going to do and say things that may lead other people, no matter who they are, to say things that, while ignorant, will leave scars on my heart.   The grief a mother of a child with a disability has never goes away for with each unkind word, each eye roll, and each sigh of exasperation from a so-called friend or teacher rips off the scab where any healing had begun to occur and the bleeding begins again.


Inside me is a woman in her late thirties who after seventeen years of working for the Federal Government was once again let down by the system and not made a permanent employee after another promise was made.  This was the time when it mattered most.  My family needed the benefits for security.

Inside me is a 40 year old woman who knows that settling into a job and working hard does not guarantee you anything but your own pat on the back.  I know that even when you settled for less than what you deserved for 17 years it is never too late to start to establish boundaries for what you will accept.


Inside me the woman in her late thirties, after so many disappointments, finally broke. I quit.  I pulled out of living my life.  I withdrew from friends, family and work.  I quit.  I cried.  I slept.  I breathed.  I wrote.  I got by.

Inside me is battle raging every day.  Sometimes it is a battle between a 7 year old and a 40 year old.  Other days it is a battle between a 16 year old and a 40 year old.  And still others, it is a thirty-something year old and a 40 year old.  Some days, the battle rages all day long.  Other days it is just for a moment at a time.  There are times when the battle seems rage on for days or weeks.  And, there are times when there is calm before the storm.  But the battle is there, nonetheless.

Inside me, this battle rages to find a way hold the memories in place without re-living them when they come to haunt me.   And, perhaps if I can hold them in place, I can make peace with all of the pieces that are inside me.