Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Part 3

I've been having terrible insomnia for months now. It's gotten to the point that every night I have to make a choice between taking a sleeping pill, getting a full night's sleep, and being groggy the next day or not taking a pill and not getting to sleep till at least 4 am (and feeling more alert the next day). I've had periods of insomnia all my life so, for a while, I thought it was just another inexplicable ( yes doctor, I exercise, no, I don't drink excessive amounts of coffee) period.

But yesterday Kirk told me he'd contacted the people at his retirement account and they'd OKed us taking out a $50,000 loan against our retirement money to pay tuition for our daughter to go to a school that can meet her very special needs. And as I lay in bed at four o'clock in the morning, I thought about how we're literally mortgaging our future to pay for our daughter's present and it seemed suddenly pretty obvious to me why I can't sleep. Yet this is, for us at least, the only acceptable course for us to take. Someone told me recently how "admirable" it was that we were doing this for our kid. But the truth is, neither of us could live with ourselves if we made the choice to be financially sensible and secure and put her in a school that couldn't meet her needs. That's all. No drama, just us walking down the only road we see before us. And now the kids are hungry and I have to go back to the calming mindlessness of the passing quotidian moments; no great threats or decisions there, just Ramen for lunch -- immediate needs and simple fulfillments.

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