dealing with depression, part 2

I'm depressed again.

I think it started yesterday after I read the post about retards in another mommy blog. She was talking about this lady that she least expected to say 'retarded'... and did. And how she dealt with it.

I have thought about the retard thing quite a bit during these past few months. And before, too, actually. It's like the word 'missionary' in a sense. One of those words that started out meaning something quite different from what it's come to mean. I'm not steady on my standing on it all.

But I do know - as I commented on her blog - that I would be inclined to whip the crap out of anyone that called my kid a retard (I think I said it nicer on her blog though).

Over the period of last night - and also feeling sick with another cold - I had memory after memory after memory of fights.

When I first started school, my head was shaved and covered with blood red scars. This was because the year before, that same head had gone through the windshield of a car (seatbelts were still accessories in 1978). I was teased ferociously - in the beginning, I remember standing there, bewildered. Completely not comprehending what was going on. It was when I did that my fighting started.

Then the 7 year old scar-faced scrapper moved to Fiji. And a new type of fighting began - when I'd get followed around and kids would throw stones at me for being white, I'd turn around and dive head-first into the group and beat the shit out of them. The kids were always but always considerably larger than me. It's like my mind goes blank - shuts off - and I don't see or hear anything. I just fight.

That's how my front tooth got chipped - a boy that I was fighting had a ring on and hit me in the mouth.

I don't physically fight anymore (unless I see someone picking on someone else) - but I still have the blank-mind thing when I encounter something outrageous in my line of work, which involves a lot of disability advocacy. I'm older now and aware that it can be more effective to be strategic in how and when to address things that are not right, but there is still the occasional time when I blow up. You know: like when voc rehab counselors start playing God or employers say they are not baby sitters (or even, 'there must be some mistake - we don't hire those people').

This is my history and this is my present. I lay awake for hours last night thinking of the future. With a precious baby girl that might be called retarded. How am I going to deal with this? How??

I'm so deeply tired of fighting. And it would seem that all my past stuff might just be a warm up for what is coming.

I feel like running back to Bolivia and hiding under a beautifully-patterned blanket and waiting for the night stars to come out and just be.

Be.