Sacred Wounds

I am not what anyone would call thick-skinned even on my strongest day. Today was IEP day.

 IEP day is the day of the year that I walk around skinless.

Every other day of the year, we measure using our Anthy ruler. He is judged only by his best self. We do not worry about what he cannot do. We do not worry about where other kiddos in his class are. Every other day we take where he is and celebrate him there and push him one step more from there and love him there.

IEP day is the day of the year that we have to measure his progress by a standard ruler. We get to hear how he has grown over the year, which is joyful. We also have to hear about how far he has to go, which hurts. 

Every time. 

I hurt. 

The entire day. 

I have done this day enough times to know not try to fight the hurt. I just let myself hurt. I am his momma. I get to hurt.

I have my survival strategies. 

I send an SOS to those of my tribe that I can reach. 

I cry. 

A lot. 

In random places. 

(This year Metamora Post Office got the unique privilege of my random tears.)

And, because I am human, sometimes this hurt makes all my wounds hurt. Today is that kind of day.

And yet, I am grateful for my wounds. All of them.

In the moment of not fighting the hurt, I get a flash of how sacred these wounds are.

My wounds are sacred. They are my badges of honor. They give me a slightly deeper, longer, wider view of life - if only momentarily. They are not quite a Total Perspective Vortex*, but they are my partial perspective vortex. Each wound holds a humbling heartbreak. From the old to the new, from the small to the large, each holds a sacred lesson which I call a gift.

I am not special. My pain is not special. My pain is the everyday kind of pain.

The momma-pain

The dreams-not-come-true-pain

The loss-pain

The fear-for-those-I-love-pain

I do not mean to sound like I am glorifying pain. I don't believe it is the only way to wisdom or the sacred.

However, it would be foolhardy and disrespectful to life to deny that it is a road to wisdom, that it does hold gifts. 

Through this pain, when I am lucky and very still, I get a few knee-weakening, awakened moments of clarity into the blessedness and sacredness of feeling it all, of living it all.

*http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_in_The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy