Social graces and pretty glasses...

Sunday dinners and Friday night bridge club

Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter

Blossom Time china and silver cutlery for dinners

Beautiful crystal glasses for fancy drinks on bridge club nights

As a child, it was fun and magical for me to set the table for such festivities

Now I get to eat off of those same china plates everyday if I want to!

Seizure disorders and alcohol do not mix well.

The effect is not immediate so it took me a while to connect the two.

Risking a grand mal seizure to find out how much is safe is not especially wise!

So, once epilepsy intruded on my life and the life of my family

I decided to avoid alcoholic beverages

peer pressure

feeling different at a social gathering

feeling left out.

They all added up to feeling

angry at being pushed into a social corner

disappointed when handed a coke in a water glass.

Taking medication is expected -   a private affair.

The offer of a refreshment, often wine, also expected - a social affair.

The serenity prayer says: 'to have the courage to change the things you can'

I can't change the fact that I have epilepsy

I could try to change feeling 

different

left out.

Bucking peer pressure is like trying to catch a bubble

It keeps getting away and popping up somewhere else.

Each time in a different gathering or setting.

I have so enjoyed the taste of 

wines

liquers

hot toddies

brandies

Epilepsy meant  no beverage with alcohol.

Thus -  no pretty, graceful stemmed glass

  

Not to mention less than festive beverages like

water

fruit juice

coke or pepsi

But I made it my mission to 

ask for a wine glass - a pretty glass

find drinks like sparkling apple or elderberry beverages

In the beginning, it was awkward, to have my difference on display

But....

I didn't ask for epilepsy

I did learn the courage to ask for a pretty glass

and the thrill of finding my own beverage.

Most of my friends and family 

have been very accommodating

(Thanks for the peach bubbly at Jon's grad, Jay.)

Some surprise, possibly wondering, at my request for 'a pretty glass please'.

But now, when I set my own table 

all the wine glasses are the same

it is only what is in them that is different

A tiny detail

but I do like the pretty glasses

that decorate my difference in normalcy

Hmmm....That's kind of like people ~

what we carry inside of us makes the difference

Many of our fears are tissue-paper-

thin, and a single courageous step 

would carry us clear through them.

- Brendan Francis