Mermaids and taxes and train wrecks and personal battles...

On a bitterly cold January morning, in Casper, Wyoming, I gave birth to a lovely, strawberry-haired, violet-eyed baby girl after only about an hour and a half of labor. We barely made it to the hospital across the snow bound streets of that bitter winter morning, and my little daughter came screaming furiously into the world, ready to fight.

By five o'clock that afternoon, she was rolling over in my hospital bed -- front to back, back to front -- like a barrel down the length of the bed. It wasn't the first sign that this child was different, there'd been indications while she was still in utero that something was unique about my little one... but I knew that night that I was in for a wild ride.

She never slept for more than 20 minutes at a time until she was 5 years old. Refused to be held close. Couldn't tolerate most clothing. Walked at 8 months. Climbed everything. Talked in full sentences before her first birthday. Was absolutely fearless. At about the age of 5 she became fascinated with snakes -- an obsession that continues to this day.

Then, around the time she was 6 or 7, she began to have anxiety attacks. She would begin to gasp and wheeze and experience a sensation that she couldn't breathe. The first time it happened, we were at home and I didn't know what to do. I checked and found her not feverish or delirious. I ran through a quick series of questions with her and ascertained that she was not choking, hadn't swallowed anything, was not injured. Still she was clearly in distress. I scooped her into my arms, carried her to the bathtub, ran the water at just slightly warmer than room temperature and gently laid her in the tub. Desperately, I told my little girl that I thought, perhaps she might be a mermaid who'd gotten lost from the ocean and just needed to have some time in the water. Splashing gently, I let the water run over her legs and arms and shoulders and belly, crooning to her about the ocean and mermaids and how much I loved her and how it would be alright and how glad I was that she had chosen to be with us. Slowly, her breathing eased and she relaxed as she watched my face and listened to the story I wove for her out of my desperate need for her to be alright...

It was a game she and I played many times after that night... whenever the mermaid in her got to feeling overwhelmed by the demands of living among mere mortals.

By the time she was in the 4th grade, she had read the complete, unabridged works of Shakespeare and was wanting to discuss the Sonnets over dinner. She was also beginning to have trouble in school and with her peers. She would con her classmates and perfect strangers on the street or at the store out of their spare change. By 5th grade, she was beginning to get into fights on the playground and I was getting calls at work about the inappropriate pranks she was pulling at school. In 6th grade it escalated to vandalism.

Then she turned 13 and all hell broke loose. She started running away from home. She started drinking and taking illegal drugs of every kind. Started having sex with everything with a penis. Started hustling pool (she's a very good pool shark). My mermaid turned into the street tough "Rambo." She never finished 7th grade.

Life for me turned into a constant search for my child. I'd go to work at 6:15 each morning. Finish work, come home, eat dinner, sleep until about 9 or 10 PM, get up and go prowl the bars and pool halls and head shops and brothels, passing her picture, asking if anyone had seen her. At 2 or 3 in the morning, we'd drag home and try to sleep a couple more hours before dragging ourselves out to go back to work. Then do it all again.

If we found her, or if the police would call and have her in custody, we'd go pick her up, drag her home and start the whole thing again. Usually, we'd be lucky if we could hold onto her for 4 or 5 days. Eventually, she attacked me physically and I called 911. They took her off in handcuffs. It was a dark day. The juvenile justice system is an interesting world that I would not wish anyone to have to try to navigate. I spent hours advocating with judges, social workers, probation officers, psychologists and district attorneys to attempt to find appropriate placements and services for my daughter. NOTE: I was not arguing that she was innocent. I was arguing that she needed to be held in an appropriate setting for her own safety and for the safety and well being of others (including the rest of our family). The reality was that, in the state of Colorado at that time, there was very little available in the way of appropriate placements for kids like my daughter.

You see, the mermaid wasn't just a BAD kid. She has Asperger's (part of the Autistic spectrum) and she has Bipolar illness. She's incredibly bright, but she doesn't get relationship cues and she has mental illness. She's beautiful and wonderful and charming when she's in a good place. But when she's not in a good place, she's not good -- and there was no good place for her when she most needed it, when we most needed it.

Years ago, the state of Colorado was overtaken by a movement that was billed as "The Tax Payer's Bill of Rights" (TABOR.) TABOR limits the state (and every governmental entity within the state) to a rate of tax growth equal to the rate of inflation, by constitutional amendment. Any windfall income that a governmental body might come by has to be returned to the taxpayers. It was easy to sell: "Forces governments to live within their means. Forces them to balance the budget. No more tax and spend." When times are good and there is growth, it goes along pretty well. But anykind of downturn or any kind of unexpected negative or catastrophic event turns TABOR into a calamity. Today, the State of Colorado has an education system, a health care system, a mental health system, and an infrastructure that is in tatters. There is simply no money and no way to raise any money. Even Colorado's very conservative governor, who was a staunch advocate for TABOR when it was passed, is campaigning to lift its draconian limitations so that the state can implement some much needed work on so many projects. TABOR was a disaster... for me and for my kid... For so many other kids and families...

AND now, it has followed me. Here. In Ohio. The rumblings are starting. Amid those who would convince the unwitting that limiting government's ability to use tax adjustments as a way to answer the community's need for services seemingly makes sense (just as it did to so many taxpayers in Colorado years ago) -- TABOR is being talked about. And there are folks who are nodding their heads and saying, "well, yes, we want services for our kids, but we do need to be responsible about budgets..." And I want to grab them by the throat and scream, "are you crazy? We need to take this thing while it is still just an idea, and drive a stake through it's heart!!!"

If I can keep it from happening here, I will have finally managed to do something for the rest of the mermaids... Because, oh... I remember all those dark and scary and desperate and hopeless days and nights.

swan