We got together every so often, the coffee clatch. Our kids all attended the same school, although in different grades. On this particular day coffee was at my house. N had been diagnosed, he was upstairs hiding from the noisy conversation, and I was feeling the change, that sense of no longer belonging in the same space as everybody else

Someone was discussing their kitchen renovation. “And it was the wrong knobs, we ordered the burnished brass, but they shipped hideous cheap wood knobs.”…. “After all that expense they still got it wrong!”. “All that money, they cannot get it right….. ” Unable to listen any longer, I zoned out for awhile, I disappeared into another time and place, wished I could stay there but something brought me back. The conversation had turned to rep hockey. “Aidan is on the triple A team this year, OMG so expensive, and we will be running around like crazy all winter.” “My Jack should have been on the elite team but that coach has his own agenda. He had to choose between Jack and his own son…..Jack was the better player……he is better than half the kids on the team….its all politics, who you know, how much money you have……” I tried to smile, I nodded when it seemed like the right thing to do, but i could not stay with the conversation. I wanted to cry, I concentrated hard, so that I would not do. They have no idea how blessed they are, they have no idea how blessed they are.

N came down from his hiding place upstairs and started yelling “sheens, sheens, eh, eh, eh, eh”. He needed to watch Mighty Machines. The conversation died a sudden death, and all eyes turned to me. I stood up and went to the VCR, I put on Mighty Machines “at the demolishion site” and a relieved N jumped up and down and watched. I returned to the look of not understanding on the faces of friends. Somebody pointed out that I was encouraging bad behavior by responding to his request. I tried to explain, “It’s not bad behavior, it’s a need”

As time went on I withdrew from my friends because our lives had diverged. We found ourselves in different worlds and nobody chose that, it just happened.