I learned many things on this trip, one of them being that Mom and I put together could barely find our way out of a paper sack. All my life, I had wondered where my horrible sense of direction came from. My dad was extremely smart, and mom was a financial wizard. Was I adopted?
As I wandered the backstreets of Rome with my mother, each skinny alley looking pretty much like the other, I discovered that what they say about the different types of intelligences is spot on. I had my linguistic. Mom had her logical-mathematical, but we were both SOL when it came to spatial relationships in real time.
About the fifth time we'd gotten lost during an after dinner stroll, I told Mom about Cory's sense of direction. She was my faithful co-pilot for almost all errands. Shamefaced, I admit to occasionally getting turned around, even in the city I've lived in all my life.
What? We all have our strengths and weaknesses. If you need a kick ass research paper cranked out on a deadline, come see me. If you need directions...keep walking.
I have many talents, and have to come to accept that a sense of direction is just not one of them. It used to make me feel stupid, like I was the dumbest blonde around, and would have to rely on my looks to get me by, which is a little frightening as I near my twilight years.
Eventually, as I became strong in situations where I simply had no other choice, I gave myself a little more credit. I am plenty intelligent; my brain just doesn't work that way. There is no shame in recognizing a street by whether or not a resident's motorcycle is parked out front, is there?
So back in the Mommy/Cory days, I would sometimes get turned around, especially if I was in a hurry, and feeling anxious. Cory would always step in, ever helpful, to tell me I was dead wrong, and the we should have turned the other way. I am easy to sway when I doubt myself, and would immediately turn around in someone's driveway, and head out in whatever direction she pointed.
Every time- and I mean everytime- we would get three minutes down the road to discover, it was indeed the wrong way, and we'd been on the right track all along. Giggling helplessly, we'd turn around yet again, marveling at our lack of intuition. It got to be an inside joke between Cory, Jake, and I. When at a loss, I'd turn to Cory, and whichever way she thought we should go, we'd turn the opposite, a pretty much fail safe method. How we laughed! Looking back, I am so glad to realize that Cory could laugh at herself, realizing that she, too, had many strengths, and should not be judged solely based on her ability to navigate herself and her family about town.
Her brain simply didn't work that way.
So, let's take that further. Plenty of us have accepted Gardner's Theory of Intelligences. Is it really so unfathomable to go one step further when it comes to mental illness? One person is no less valuable than another. Illness is not chosen by anyone.
That's really all it boils down to after all...some brains work differently than others. Over time, Cory became increasingly comfortable talking to others about Schizoaffective Disorder. Why should she be ashamed? They would accept her, or they wouldn't.
And in the end, she had educated one more person that a bright, beautiful, intelligent girl could be suffering from a debilitating mental illness, and learning to find her way.
In Cory's words, "Those with mental illness can be healthy, they just need a little support".
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