–If I were mixed up with you, I’d be the talk of the town
Disgraced and disowned, another one of the clowns
–But you would finally live a little, finally laugh a little
Just let me give you the freedom to dream
And it’ll wake you up and cure your aching
Take your walls and start ’em breaking…

WARNING: This post brought to you by persisting anger over a shitty American president and an abusive Australian teacher, endorphins, high-idling baseline anxiety levels, and a running soundtrack that includes songs like the Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage.” What I’m saying is that, today, I’m here to chew gum and kick ass, and guess what? I’M ALL OUT OF GUM, BITCHES.

There are only a few weeks left.

This is what I keep hearing: from kids, from parents, from myself, even, as we approach the end of The Kid’s first-grade year. It’s been a hell of a year, too, in all the ways. He’s grown more independent, which means I’m off the hook for everything from poo accidents to pulling teeth (#usedtobeadentist). His language has skyrocketed in both amount and articulation. He’s made and kept friends. He’s kicked ass.

He’s also had a teacher that has been angry, abusive, and awful at most every turn, and much like the Dixie Chicks, I’m not ready to make nice anymore. I’m so over this that I’ve gone back under it, around the block, and past it again. I’ve hinted around, I’ve tried tact, I’ve stayed calm (for me). But this morning on my run, I remembered the wise words of Sean Connery of SNL‘s “Celebrity Jeopardy”:

I’ve got a pen(is) and I’m prepared to use it. As The Husband would say (when he’s trying not to call me a b*tch), I’m Fired Up.

Some background.

Recently over Voxer, where I speak my love language (outrage with an underpinning of heart), I was talking to a friend about having the kind of kids that are considered “different.” See also: “special.” “Challenged.” Any number of words that are meant to soften the “blow” that is the hand some have been dealt. And what a blow, what a hand, it can be–there’s no denying that. She and I have spent countless hours in waiting rooms, under lead aprons next to X-ray machines, holding our children down on tables, fighting for them at schools, crying over them in bed. We’ve stood on the edges of birthday parties and social gatherings wondering if it will ever get better or if the perimeter is where we should look for long-term real estate. We’ve fretted and feared and burned with pain and righteous (and unrighteous) anger. We have felt, and damn, can that hurt.

We’ve also laughed. Oh my, how we’ve laughed. We’ve pounded wine–not enough, too much, and just the right amount. We’ve held hands and jumped for joy. We’ve done victory dances. We’ve let our jaws drop in wonder. We’ve shaken our heads in disbelief. And oh, have we felt.

We’ve felt it all: the bridge between the way things are and the way they could and should be; the gulf between Same and Different. We are travellers who never stop moving. We are tired and weak and strong and able. We’re all the things, because we’ve had to be. And yet we’re never enough, which constantly both confounds us and sends us to a power outside ourselves, a deeper mercy and a bigger grace than we have within us. We fail miserably and win stunningly. And oh, how we love. But even more: oh, how we are loved. By that deeper mercy and bigger grace, which we forget about all the time but which still manages to lead us home every moment.

We are not the kind who can say, with conviction, “It’s just a few more weeks!” because, as advocates who have been through it, we know that injustice of any kind, that mistreatment of any kind, is not something to be shrugged off and tolerated, but fought. And we? We fight. We fight because we were put here–in a place we never would have had the bravery to choose ourselves–and we know that shrugging is no longer in our DNA. It’s been erased along with the passivity and lack of identity that plagued us before. We’re so done with that.

And yet…

(I’ll switch to “I” here)–

I’ve been left in a wonderfully awkward position. Because I love every person reading these words. Every person who disagrees with my politics. Every person who supports the abusive teacher or the shitty president, and this is why: because I’ve been there. I’ve been on every side of it. (Travelling will do that to a person.) I’ve been the one who wanted to fly under the radar, who wanted to take up arms for protection, who laughed off inappropriate comments, who questioned whether what they were doing with her kid was right but didn’t want to offend. I don’t have the luxury of a high horse (which I hate, because I would look so majestic on one, especially with a tiara) given that the primary agent of grace in my life rode into a city on a donkey (I would ask for an upgrade to at least Lil Sebastian). It’s so annoying, how I still have to love people.

Last week at the zoo, in between his teacher kicking students and stepping on their fingers and screaming at them, I tried to stick with TK and his group. I’d lose him momentarily and look behind me, searching for his face. Unfailingly, it wasn’t there. I would turn back around, look ahead. He used to be the one on the perimeter, at the back. Now? Unfailingly, he was ahead. Always ahead, and in the mix.

We will always be different. We are destined to be. That’s no longer the curse I thought it was. Because here’s the deal that goes along with that: I will fight for my child, and for yours–whether you want me to or not. I will pray for mine, and yours–whether you ask me to or not. I will laugh and cry and dance and feel harder than I ever did before I accepted that different is our lot. Because the difference–along with all the other ones that define us–is that now, I’m finally someone I would want on my own side.