Different Makes the World Go Round

When I started college many moons ago I bounced around from major to major. At first thinking about speech therapy then moving on to nursing and eventually settling on special education (which I think is now called something else but since my diploma says that I will go with it). Through all of the choosing the only thing that stayed the same was that I wanted to help people in some way. When I settled on special ed. I took a lot of courses introducing me to all sorts of different types of people with varying alternative needs (as I like to say). Everything from babies and preschoolers to adults in group homes. Some of it was shocking and most all of it was heart wrenching. I know that coming into someones life after the difference is noticed and identified makes that a part of who they are. When I met my students they were labeled and had plans already in place to address their needs. The difference is that whatever challenges they had weren't really decipherable from who they were ...it was all blended into just them. What I am coming to find out is that if you already know and love someone before the difference is identified I think it might be harder to accept or understand. You try to have a clear vision and listen to the experts but through the jumble of terms all you really see is the person the same way you did before. This can be good and bad. Good because they are the same person, just with a new dimension added into the complexity of their personality. Bad because it makes you realize that there is no such thing as perfect or easy. Nothing is tied up neatly with a bow. More like wrapped in used Sunday comics and tied with an old piece of twine. Luckily perspective is a friend in all of this. From some angles all the differences glare but from others they are starting to meld together.