Today has been exhausting on a number of levels. I drove over 200 miles today and my back is killing me.. We had to drive about 85 miles (one way) to a meeting this morning as part of the study that Emmett is involved in called Project Bridge. Today was our first "group" meeting. Basically, we meet with a few other families and interventionist (so to speak) and share our experience and learn new techniques to help better relate, communicate and even integrate into our Autistic children's world. The families we met today were really nice. Honestly, it was slightly uncomfortable for me, not because of anyone there but because we so rarely come into personal contact with other families similar to ourselves. I really enjoyed hearing little snippets of their journey's. We all have so much in common even though our children are each very different from one another. Blogging and actually face to face communication is a vastly different experience. So many times I get emotional while I'm writing something. However, getting emotional in a face to face conversation makes you very vulnerable. As much as I blog about the things I experience I rarely get to talk to someone about them in real life. It's just a completely different animal altogether. Not bad..........just.........different.
I looked forward to meeting every other Friday and continuing to learn and grow. If I'm to be completely honest, I do have my concerns about this as well. Namely the distance we have to travel. The GPS has it at about 180 miles round trip. That translates into at least half a tank of gas at about 13 gallons. With current gas prices going through the roof, I'm concerned about the cost of driving this distance. Today we spent $50 just to get there and back. I had hit the gas station after we got home before picking up the kids from school. So really that cost was actually higher. The reality is that we aren't made of money and we HAVE to take these things into account. At the same time though, if this can help Emmett how can I put a price on that. All I can say is that I'll do the best I can to make this work because I truly believe it to be worth it.
