What's In a Name?

It took some work to find an appropriate name for the blog. I wanted to strike a balance between truth and humor, reality and hope. The Sane Asylum, Finding Level Ground, School and Home, and The Absurd Life were all taken. Futility Defeated, Sidestepping Sanity, Launching Logic and Sisyphus Redeemed (more on Sisyphus later) were all possibilities but lacked, hmmm, some sort of necessary inanity. Truth is, if there's no humor, there's no hope.

The New World Dictionary defines wit as mental faculties with respect to their state of balance, esp. in their normal condition of sanity. Huh? As a newly determined ADD woman who is working to home school her ADHD son, balance and sanity are always in view and always out of reach. I know what balance looks like. I don't know what it feels like and I certainly don't know how to choreograph it. Does sanity exist without balance? Not in my experience. The dictionary goes on to articulate 'at one's wits' end' - a point where one's mental resources are exhausted; at a loss as to what to do. Then there's 'to keep one's wits about one' which is to remain mentally alert. Okay, doing well on both of them simultaneously. I'm entirely alert to the fact that I am at a loss as to what to do. I am an ADD woman who is trying to help her ADHD son cope with his disorder. It is, in fact, a case of the blind leading the blind.

Therefore, Beyond Wits' End is a most appropriate name for this blog. The purpose of the blog is to have one place to keep account of our successes and failures, our goals and challenges of living, loving and learning within the confines of our disorders. The blog will replace the notebooks and bookmarks I've accumulated in my quest for knowledge about our disorders and centrally locate the sources of my research. I can construct the concepts into concrete collections of words that will help to define and direct my efforts into something useful.... Did I really say that? In other words, maybe I can gather my wits and make some sense of it all. If all else fails, it is a creative venture that I can call my own. And, it won't leave a pile of materials sitting in a corner if it becomes another undone project in my long list of undones. I'm chock full of ideas but out of words so I will close on this note: there is life beyond wits' end... Good night!