Have you heard of the new feature that they have for google email?  It is a little thing where you can stop an email you have just sent someone before it gets there.  I imagine that this can be a useful thing for people who make a practice of sending out messages to people while they are in a heightened state of emotion. (drunken, broken hearted, Hulk-Angry, etc)  It is kind of like a fail safe key for those who gather their wits a few moments after pressing send and realize that maybe they should rethink their motivation for writing it in first place.  Sometimes writing things out of emotion is something that can lead to moments of deep and profound regret.

I know that in a few years I could look back on my blogging days and feel a little weirded out that I wrote some of these while bathed in emotion.  I could very well equate my logic in doing this to drunk texting.  Doing these little entries is certainly something that is well beyond my comfort zone...but what I learned while not blogging for a month was that I kind of came to need it.  Virtual therapy?  Sure, probably.  But this little ritual of parading my skeletons out into the light has taught me one thing....

There are plenty of people who walk the same path my family and I are taking.

Through my years of blogging both here and the now uber creepy My Space I have come into contact with many other people who struggle, celebrate, and worry over the same stuff I do.  Just this week I have received many messages of mockery, support, questions, and love from these folks.  Thank you from the bottom of my Culture Club loving heart!  Talking about my sons journey into the maze of autism has brought some wonderful people into my life....

I do however, know that there are people who read this who are not walking down the same road.  For those of you who read this we may share nothing in common.  You may not be raising a child with special needs or any child at all, you might not be afraid of clowns, you just might actually like the movie "Sleepwalkers".  But....I am hopeful that maybe there is something of some value here that can feed you even in the slightest.  Even if it is the thought "Yikes...I thought my life was a mess.  Thank God I have Roedel for a measuring stick." 

So maybe this past week of blogging has been something that may not have had anything in it that you could relate to.  I understand if that is the case.  However, maybe in my final Adam's Camp 09 entry I have a simple theme that could apply to most.  Have you ever been on a vacation, or at a party, dinner party with friends, retreat, or at a movie that you never wanted to end?  That when the time of closure was on it's way you had the wave of pressure wash over you.  Even though you had pushed the pause button on your life it was now time to get it rolling again.  All of the crap, bills, conflicts, and worries that you were able to suspend were now coming back to the front burner...

That feeling sucks.  Super Duper Ouper Hooper Sucks.  (my spell check is going to love that sentence..)

Sitting here in this sacred place just a few hours before going back to real world I am fretting over it.  I am not sure I want to go back to a place where I have to explain our family situation every twenty minutes.  I am not sure I want to go back and have to convince some people that my son is not someone who is broken.  I am not sure I want to go back and feel like it is a constant fight to keep the vultures of underestimation away from my little guy.  I am not sure I want to go back to our families crazy busy summer where one of us is flying out the door every few minutes to something that at the time seems important.  I am not sure that I want to go back to a place where I don't feel centered in my soul and connected to the invisible.

When we leave Rockies tomorrow we follow a windy path into and up a large mountain pass. We will follow a river against it's flow  that leads us to the incline and the steep climb.  These river bends and eventually turns into a series of waterfalls that cascade down  beautifully from the peaks above.  I am already sad about reaching the place where the river bends...because that means our land of sunshine and unicorn snuggles is coming to an end.  I am nervous about reaching the place where the river bends because I worry about what the next year brings for us.  Going to where the river bends is like going back into the Wardrobe and escaping Narnia or going up the rabbit hole and away from Wonderland.  I have been where the River Bends...and the grass is not as green as it is here.

So for tonight I will fight reality.  I know that sometime around 4 pm mst tomorrow  we will be passing the place where the river bends. I know that tomorrow new battles will begin, and the newfound fire in my belly will push me into further action.    Til' then I will deny that it is happening.  Just for the next few hours I will not think about going where the River Bends. 






The above song which is originally sung by Matthew Barber fully expresses how I feel like right now.  It would be line for line the conversation I would have with my wife right now if she had not refused to stay up to the wee hours with me. 


Where the River Bends
by Matthew Barber

Tell me what you think, tell me what you feel
Is this thing a fake, or is it for real
Is it what you hoped for, what you dreamed
Is it something strange, that you never seen

Does it lift you up, closer to the light
Does it send you raging into the night
Where did it begin, will it ever end
Where the sun sets and the river bends

Where the river bends, is a place I've been
The water's not as blue, and the grass well it ain't so green
The current gets strong, it can pull you down
You gotta swim hard, if you want to turn around

But i don't want to go there, baby not with you
I'm happy right here, now I got a love that's true
So let's stay awhile, and invite our friends
No one needs to go where the river bends

No No No
No No No
No No No
No No No

I don't want to go there, baby ever again
I'm gonna be with you right here till the very end
So let's stay forever and ever and ever amen
No one needs to go where the river bends

No No No
No No No
No No No


Another week at Adam's Camp is ending.  We, like dozens of other families will be packing up our cars and heading out in the afternoon tomorrow.  As we drive away from a place where we have found a brief eye for our hurricane we will be going where the river bends and back into our lives that are spread out all of the country.  Pray for the children who are fighting (even though most don't speak) to have their lives count.  As we leave these retreat of respite behind and follow the bending river we are coming back to your towns, schools, and shopping malls....treat us well.


Goodbye Adam's Camp.  Thank you for holding us closer to the light.

For more information of Adams Camp and the amazing wonderful people who run it please visit THIS LINK