When I first sat down to write this entry I sat here ready to spin my own "buyer beware" story of agencies, and how they will turn you into a crazy person, sometimes to the point where you're walking around in a depression of their making, wondering how it is you're going to escape. I was going to tell you how it was impossible basically. Then I remembered something.

For most people, this is a time about light. Christmas tree lights, candles, all lights big, little, fat, thin, but lights. That is a much more hopeful story and, silly as it sounds, it’s actually more helpful in the long run. So if you don’t mind I’ll start here.

I may have to share my doom and gloom tale, but not yet. Everyone of us, from caregiver to care receiver, from young to old, has woken up on days and couldn’t find one good thing about actually moving out of bed. Well, imagine having to walk from your bed to your bathroom with only a candle. It’s difficult but possible. The more we say it isn’t the more we rob ourselves of our own independence. Worse, we make a mockery of those who fought before us to get us what we have and we build the walls that generations after us are going to have to tear down. Can we, who are blogging here right now do that to the future? It may seem a small thing we do, sit and type a few hundred words a few times out of the month, but we could be building the platform for our next generation. For the community to come long after we are gone.

So for now, I keep an unlit candle on my dresser to remind myself that while I may be alone in some of my fights, big and small, those are the lights of our future.