...copy/paste and expand...

What follows, in bold, are the words from a recent series of my personal Instagram stories.  Having shared them in that format on a vulnerable whim, I've copied them to here as a 'stepping off point' for further conversation around our family's current situation: navigating young adulthood and social-constructs around success and productivity, disability, support needs and resources....and the ever-unfolding dynamic (complete with seismic shifts) of hope, expectation, and delay.

Just taking a moment to sit with these thoughts while Henri nurses.
That previous slide barely scratches the surface.  Johannes is brilliant...brilliant in ways most of us can't even comprehend or measure.  That's not bragging. It's actually the complete opposite.  It's complaining.
Because high intellect is met, in society, with great expectation.
And in the case of high IQ autistics, that expectation can be devastating.  Because it too often assumes that the individual can 'push past' or 'break through' the very real limitations of his disability and somehow, miraculously, 'behave' as a neurotypical.  It casts them in the light of failure if they aren't 'making the most' of their intellectual gifts and potential within neurotypically-designed/understood parameters.

Since the very earliest days of Johannes' public-school education, it was recognized that he was 'gifted'.  His mind is a wonder to behold. Conversations with him on most any subject take to staggering heights and glorious descents.  His capacity for data...for knowledge, is...beyond.  And his ability to reason and extrapolate and expand upon that data is limitless.  I often think of him as the ultimate problem-solver.  His mind takes a problem down to all of its basic elements and then forms a string of sequential 'fixes'...all innovative, all reasonable but not necessarily probable...  He's able, at a moment's notice, to draw from anything he's taken in (read, heard, seen, experienced, etc...) in order to extend the dialogue into unexpected areas.  

He is, as I have often said, the most interesting person I know.

He is 'gifted'.

He is also disabled.

(As my personal "editor in chief", he has approved the above use of terminology.  But...and this is big...we don't tend to use that phrase in that manner, because language is nuanced and language around diagnosis and disability has been so misused in society.)

Neither cancels out the other.

Disability, or, rather, the specific support needs he has, are wholly separate from self-or-intellectual manifestation.  They are not 'over-ride-able' or 'dismissable' or even 'set-aside-able'.  They are part of his core-processing system.  

To imagine that logic and reasoning can somehow overturn the basic coding of neurodivergence is...laughable.  And yet, that very notion has been a constant.

Because, you see...

...he's 'gifted'.

Gifted: given something 'extra', exceptional

And...

Exceptional means...

...the rules don't apply.

???

Wait, what?

So heading back to the above....from the beginning, he was singled out as 'gifted', as exceptional...and therefore as someone to whom the rules wouldn't be applied.  The fight for services and supports was bitter and bloody...an ongoing battle whose #1 casualty was always, always his self-perception...his confidence.  Both sides manipulating language and diagnostic terminology to suit their end goals.  Far too often, the 'path to IEP' was littered with shame.  The 'team meetings' we had here at home, strategizing how to utilize specific anecdotal evidence of support needs while utterly ignoring his many, varied strengths and skills...  The conversations, ongoing even now, in which I repeatedly told him that he would have to listen as 'so called experts' defined him by terms that never, never applied to him...broke him down to a series of deficits and problems to solve and useless, rote 'skills' to drill. 

He was gifted.  He was exceptional.  He was...an exception to the expectations.

He was...in fact, expected to intellectualize his way into neurotypicality, one AP class at a time. 

And here we are...some 10 months after graduation...

And he remains gifted.

He remains exceptional.

He has, in 10 months' time, been living an exception from the expected.

Because he didn't matriculate at the Ivy Leagues as expected.

He didn't fast-track his way through freshman year to an internship.

He didn't submit his first prosthetic design for consideration.

He hasn't yet recovered from the battle.

And he hasn't miraculously intellectualized his way into the neurotypical life with all its functioning requirements and demands. 

Creating an environment in which Johannes can continue to learn and grow...using both his talents and his passion...to build his own best life, is an ongoing challenge.

There is no structure in place, now that he's graduated.  There's no daily responsibility to show up for...no grading system in place to carve out the failures and successes.  There's no desk at which he sits and performs the exercises of ongoing education, because the areas on which he's working...studying....applying...aren't found in textbooks.

He's learning how to be exceptional in a world that's built for the unexceptional.
And he's breaking himself into pieces, trying to mimic the habits and skills and routines of neurotypicals. 

And, frankly, so am I.  Because the support system...is me.  The support person...is me.  The daily living skill driller...the calendar...the timer...the reminder...is me.  The office manager and social media director for his business...is me.  I handle the books and the schedule and the stopwatch on every project, every proposal, every venture.  I am the clock. I am the (sometimes, hopefully) stable ground.

It is a full-time job.  The "managing" of this talent.

A full-time job squeezed into limited seconds...minutes...never hours... 

Because I have other children...other responsibilities...other jobs....all of equal importance.

And, in what's perhaps the most important piece, it's completely unpredictable. There's no guide.  No applicable rules or schedule or system.

There is just whatever each day brings.... incalculable stimuli and overwhelm...and the ongoing need for ever-reversing, ever-evolving response. 

~~~

Watching his former peers 'moving on' in their freshman years is a heartbreaking lesson in this parenthood...of managing my own expectations and wishes, of reordering my life around his very real and present ongoing support needs, and of not experiencing what is the norm for so many others.

It feels like an end.  A death of a dream. 
Even though it's not. 
It feels like everything we both worked toward was just suddenly ripped out of existence.

It does not feel like a postponement.  A 'gap'.

This gap year feels like failure.

Because it's not, likely, just this one year.

The assessments I have to do as his parent and his support person have made it very clear that he is Not Yet Ready...and that feels like a crushing blow.

It feels like the road to a bright and beautiful future just hit a dead-end.

Feels.

Feelings overrunning fact.

Feelings, with roots in the fear center of motherhood, that have been allowed to fester and run wild. Feelings that find red flags and justifications in the minutiae of daily life. 
Feelings that drown out hope.
Feelings that cloud my judgement.

It feels like an end, and it is.

An end to this particular chapter.

This first-10-months-after-graduation chapter.

The next page is...blank...

And that is just as terrifying.

The lack of characters and lines conjuring up insecurity and doubt.

Johannes and I are in a very different season right now.
It's been challenging.
It's been devastating.
It's been beautiful.

We move in colliding circles around each other daily...never too far from the other.  The points of intersection wearing away like friction burns as we both try to scratch out patches of independence.  He, chomping at the bit...wanting to assert his young adulthood and sit as an equal at the table.

Me, desperately trying to shake off my ever-present-shadow and have a single conversation that he doesn't push his way into.

Both of us, at the end of each day, finding comfort in our routines and our silent companionship.

We're learning to find grace in the uncomfortable.

We're learning how to acknowledge disappointment while managing to not emotionally invest in it.

We're learning how to grow a whole new partnership.

Years ago, I wrote of his growing up and growing out in terms of a relay race.  I wrote of how we'd come to the part where the baton is passed, from me to him.

What I didn't realize was that there's a time...extended in our case...where the baton is held by both.

A time where both runners...the one exhausted of effort and the other, just now catching up and hoping to overtake...are equal stake-holders...err...baton-holders.

The partnership...the teamwork...is both a mutual effort at keeping that baton aloft, and a tug-of-war between two runners, both intent on crossing that finish line.  

And most of the time, we're both failing to keep it together.

That friction of intersection?

That tug-of-war?

Daily.

My suggestions and supports so often in conflict with what he wants to be able to do 'by himself'.

His lack of independence or, rather, his ongoing support needs in conflict with my need for him to grab that baton and let me take a slower lap.

More pointedly, his still-constant need of me...a drain on my energy and resources and an interference in attention owed to my other children and my other responsibilities and my own self.

This is NOT what I envisioned.

It's not what I thought we were working toward.

It's not what all those therapies and IEPs and support plans were for.

It's not what those straights As and test scores led me to believe.

This 'gap'...this, between...and after...and before???...and undefined passage of time?

This wasn't expected.

It's become a lesson in pivoting.  In...taking our team out of the race even through it looked like we were in the lead...  In slowing and even stopping our forward movement, in order to assess damages...treat injuries...and readdress the cost/benefit analysis of continuing in the next heat.

It's something else entirely.

And you know what?

It's really, really hard to come to terms with where we're at and what's in the immediate future.  Because I was never planning for him not to overcome.

That's my own crutch.  My own 'reckoning come due'.

It's my 'toxic trait'...meeting each challenge overcome with one bigger and bolder...and in some cases, completely unreachable.

It's NOT ON HIM.

It's 100% my own failure to realize that Effort In does not guarantee Output.

It's my failure to wholly accept that his support needs are the core-processing system...non-negotiables.

It's my own completely inappropriate Great Expectation.

And it's been with me since the beginning...since the first diagnostic test.  It's been the rod in my spine that kept me standing when the rest of me fell to pieces in early days of diagnosis and behavior. It's been the light at the end of the tunnel when my own overwhelm has swallowed me up.

It's been a Friend.

A Saviour.

A Hope.

It's been a lie.

Because there was, in fact, never an Overcoming to be had.

Nor needed.

I never accepted that there might not be a 'breakthrough' and full, functional independence.

I had pictures in my mind...possibilities of 'life after' highschool/college/career.  An off-campus residence for daily support.  A two-family home with regular reminders and assists.  A car service account...a grocery shopper...an automated evening shutoff.

Independence, by way of met support needs.

Hands off...while hands on.

That's Not where we're at.

I never paused in my efforts to acknowledge the very real possibilities of what mothering an adult autistic person might look and feel like.

And neither did he.

We're both taking tentative 'first steps'...wobbling and grasping for support, as we try to plot out not only where we actually are right now...but also, what might come next.

So here we are...scouting out this new territory and trying on hats for size, as we rewrite our team's playbook.

I'm finding myself chafing at the feel of those hats...those responsibilities that I thought I'd have been able to pass off to him 'by now'.  They're old, familiar companions...sure.  They're rote and routine and almost mechanical.  But I am tired of them.  They require energy that I feel drained of right now.  They require me to split myself in two...one side always observing/analyzing/reacting in advance to perceived areas of support...the other just trying to be all the things to all the other people.

I wish everyone else would just stop expecting my neurodivergent son to follow a neurotypical path.

"Silence!", I want to shout.  "Silence. Your unsolicited opinion has no place here."

Silence, please?

Stop forcing your way in. Stop adding the weight of your 'disappointed expectations' to my already overloaded travel-pack.

Yes, he's gifted.

Yes, he's exceptional.

He is all three...gifted, exceptional, autistic...and so very, very much more.

The standard path...the expected, is Not For Him.

And likewise, it is Not For Me.

I wish we could just breathe easy and know that it's all coming together exactly as intended, and neither he nor I need to hit benchmarks of 'normal' progression.

I wish we could.

I think we should.

Let's just do that.

...tidying up...

It's a gorgeous day, outside, today.

Crisp and clear...sunny and bright.

The pull of fresh air has my fingers itching at window sashes and doors...the impulse to fling them all open and welcome in the *idea* of spring almost too strong to resist.

It's gorgeous, outside.

But here within these walls, as I pause in the middle of a frantic morning clean up, the bright sunlight highlights all the flaws.  The hairline cracks and chipped paint.  The mismatched touch-ups and faded spots.  The cat hairs and stains.  The fingerprints and finger-paint-prints and nose-prints.

The light streams in from the picture window and draws out dust-bunnies from their dark warrens. It forces its ways in, casting the front rooms into stark relief...multiplying contrast and saturation...drawing the eye to the shabby of our chic.

I've walked away, for a moment.  Taken a time out to stop the rising tide of anxiety.

We've *company* coming today, to celebrate the boys' birthdays.  Company, with a capital C.

C:
for criticizing
for condescending
for comparing
for correcting

And I've taken to the page to exorcise (or, perhaps, exercise) my self-loathing spiral...to step away from the hustle-and-bustle and tousle of rearranging and relocating that 'needs must' when welcoming anyone into our small space.  I've felt the anticipatory panic bubbling up and given myself an 'out' of blank white space and silence for a moment or two...or ten.

Around me, the chaos builds.  A battle of dueling vacuums in the living room.  Drip-drying dishes on the counter. Bin on the floor, overflowing with "clutter": those bits and pieces of daily life that would be scrutinized and sneered at.

Beside me, here at the table, a hastily scrawled 'to-do' list that seems to double in size each time we each set off to complete a task.

So much effort...
So much work...
Just to avert...
No!
Just to minimize the damage of the pointed barbs that will be delivered with such deliberate intent.

So here I sit, breathing in and out...slow and steady...and getting rather heady from the lack of oxygen.  Forcing myself to write it out rather than act it out in slamming drawers and hard-flung doors. Deliberately taking time out to get out...of my own head, of my own way.

It's a gorgeous day, outside.

There's nothing to be done, inside.  Nothing but a quick tidy and rinse. Nothing but a cake to bake (please, oven, don't mess with me today) and decorate. Nothing but a table to set.

Nothing to be done, inside.

Except...that's not true...because Company is coming and no matter what I do, they'll find fault.

 

...tied up in knots...

Healing.

My word of the year for 2023.

Healing.

The literal and the figurative.

The physical and the abstract.

The body and the mind...or the heart...or the soul...or the lost, lonely inner-child still looking for a soft place to land...

It's more than a word, as I'm coming to realize.  More, even, than a change of lifestyle.

It is painstakingly untangling all the mess of all the intersecting traumas, and the barricades and avoidant/reactive responses that I once thought of as a safety net.

Healing is finding that every time I cautiously pull one on small thread to see if I can loosen it and pull myself free, it snags on something else.

Damage spreads, like a hairline fracture that gradually becomes deeper and longer.   The hits leave behind bruises...flesh and spirit becoming weaker and more sensitive.

And housed within one body...one mind...trauma and pain grow in overlapping layers, each spreading out and attaching to others.

The breaking of you becomes the making of you.

Which means, I'm only just now reconciling...

The making of me, will likely require the breaking of me.

Because some of those knots can't be untangled.  Some of them weren't made by me.

Those knots?

I have to just cut.

Cut, and hope that the whole tangled mess doesn't collapse in on itself.

Those knots are at the center.

~the unwanted child~

~the shattered victim~

The hard part of healing is that it isn't just one thing...one piece...one string at a time.  They all pull on each other and fight for dominance.  And the harder you pull on just the one thing that you think you can tackle today, the more you risk snapping that string and breaking the fragile web of safety knots with which, you've surrounded yourself.

So healing isn't easy.

Okay.

I guess.

I mean, if it was, wouldn't I have already done it?

Healing isn't easy.

Or linear.

You can't cram it into the calendar...one date at a time.

Because every step forward is impeded by a pull-back in some other area you weren't ready to acknowledge yet.

Healing is exhausting.

It's insomnia and panic-attacks.

It's adrenaline-surges and trembling hands.

It's forgetting how to form words and feeling your feet step backwards even as you are willing them to cross the threshold.

It's journaling...daily...taking note of every sensory reaction...the length...the aftershocks...and the recovery time.

It's tripping over strings you might have untangled but haven't yet discarded.

It's celebrating one success, but not being able to move toward the next.

Healing is hurting.

Healing is breaking down.

Healing is trying to break things down into smaller pieces, only to have them multiply and solidify and burrow down even deeper.

My healing, right now, is a repeated circuit of picking at one tangle at a time, to see if there are any loose threads I can pull out.

My healing is an exercise in exorcism...as old, unhealed wounds rise to the surface once again.

I'm tired.

I feel defeated.

I want to give up or give in or just settle, again.

Which is why these words are on this page, today.

To hold me accountable.

To dare me to try again tomorrow.

And hopefully...

to remind me, someday, of how far I've come.

...cauterizing the wound...

 The irony is not lost on me that I went into January with a focus on healing...as first my youngest~then my eldest~and now myself (and my partner) all succumbed to the viral Winter '23 virus surge.  Presently, I'm curled up in the recliner, blankets wound about me in perplexing tangles, with a veritable pharmacy on hand beside me.  I'm medicated, and then some, and slightly hazy around the edges.

Yesterday was, among other things, the perfect counterpoint to my word for the year.  It was a bitter reminder of how far I'd allowed myself to fall.  And a lesson, by deed/not word, of what not to do, for my children.  In fact, later in the evening I very intentionally said to my eldest " Don't EVER let one bad thing that happens to you jostle you so off-course that you wind up here." 

Talk about shame...and self-loathing...and...
...terror.

And the self-feeding cycle of all those emotions as I struggled to come to terms with what I already knew...

My focus this year was going to be on healing.

On my terms.

At my pace

In safe, gentle ways.

Was.

But here and now...my hand was being forced without time to process.  I was...sick.

My youngest came down with cold symptoms and eye-discharge first.  Then my eldest spiked a fever, chills, congestion...and pinkeye.  A week later, I woke up with a burning throat and a steadily rising temperature.  Excruciating throat pain with every breath...post-nasal drip...pressure in the sinuses...etc..
But I "soldiered" on...tending to my children and my partner, easing their discomfort, convinced I could power through mine. 

Just pop the Aleve and keep the citrus coming.  I can fight this off myself.

Mind you...we all just got over RSV which paid a visit in November and over-stayed its welcome.  I'm nursing, still, and I'm quite convinced that my body is putting more effort into making milk then it is into healing itself. 

But I digress...

I was sick.  I needed real medicine...not just fever-reducers and clear liquids.

But the very idea of stepping through the doors of a medical office made me want to cry.

I'm not a crier.  I'm a blink it back...swallow it...never let them see you hurt...

Perhaps learning how to cry is part of healing?

So, something happened.  Once. One bad thing.  Horrific, really. 

You don't need to know, and I don't need to write it out.  Not here. Not now.

It was a bad thing.

One bad thing that I have, in my post-traumatic avoidance, allowed to fester and grow into an all-encompassing terror that stops me in my tracks.  It defies reason and logic, and the pursuit of health. 

One bad thing happened.  To me.

And I have spent all these years, trying to protect myself the only way I knew how...but in reality, just continuing to be a victim.

Because I just stopped.

I have tried.  Please know that.  I have made the appointments, and from time to time, I have managed to force myself to go.  But eventually the fear overrides my earnest attempts, and the years go by.

This is trauma. And it has always been stronger than my will.

So I have gone years without a check-up...without dental interventions...without primary and continuing care.  Because I am weaker than my fears.

Yesterday, I was so sick...so weak...that my fear-response weakened, too.

I made it in the door.  I made it to the counter.  I asked if there was someone on-call for sick visits.

And I was turned away.

Because, you see, my fear...my fear had kept me out of that office for more than three years...the outside window of time that my practitioner has for considering someone an established patient.

There I was.  Inner monologue firing off warning bells as I held myself rigid so as not shake.  Having fought a battle just to cross that doorstep.  And...no...   No, I couldn't be seen.  No, I couldn't get help.  No.

I said "thank you" and walked out.  I got to the car and collapsed inside and broke into a million little pieces of self-loathing and shame.  This.  This was what I had done to myself.  Here and now, unable to get the medical help I needed because I hadn't been braver...sooner.  Why was I so weak...so pitiful?  Oh, how I hated myself then.

(In hindsight, with a cocktail of pharmaceuticals in me as I type this...it's the man that I hate...the one who did the thing...the one who made a victim of me.  But yesterday, I could only see my own shame.)

Home again.  In defeat. In shame.  Sick.  Exhausted from illness and from the fight to get past the fear.  Feverish and dizzy and weak after weeks of caring for everyone else while ignoring myself.

Aiming for stoic on the outside, but hysterical beyond the point of return on the inside.

Thankfully, my youngest was still napping.  My eldest helped me into the house...settling me down and wrapping me up like a burrito...tending to me as I've tended to him.  I hid my face as I cautioned him to not let fear ever disrupt him.  I hid as hot tears spilled out of my burning eyes.

I hid my shame. My fear.  My weakness.

I was an embarrassment.  A broken, useless thing not fit to be his parent.

And he tended to me.  Cool water and warm blankets and soft hands on my forehead.  Lights out and silence and whispered reassurances.

(He's a miracle, this one.)

Some time later, my partner returned, having found an urgent care that would accept my insurance. (Most don't, and we don't have the financial security blanket to cover medical emergencies.)

Back into the car...inner dialogue of tough-love resumed...and off we went.

I made it in the door...over that threshold.  I filled out the tablet-intake screen.

Followed the texted prompts and typed in the necessary fields.

Sat in the chair, waiting, repeating over and over...stand up, walk in, don't cry.

Finally, my name was called.

I stood up.

Walked in.

Gasped in a breath of face mask and cold, sterile hallway as my temperature was taken, and found myself in triage...counting the black dots on the wall in front of me as some part of my brain answered the assistant's questions.

Temperature, again.

Step on the scale. Ouch...my brain registering a number higher than I used to be.

Sitting down...blood pressure cuff.  I froze in panic as it tightened...feeling invisible fingers clenching my arm.  Black dots. One...two...twenty-seven...  Done.

"Follow me."

Back in the hallways with bright lights buzzing and astringent smell.

Then the gaping silence of a small room.  My adrenaline firing at every crinkle of the paper beneath me.  My breathing suddenly so loud that I didn't hear the footsteps or knock or door opening.

"I'm Doctor ____.  What brings you in here today?"

Rote answers.  Rehearsed in my head in advance.  Hands clenched around each other to no one could see the claw marks my fingers were leaving.  Pain to override freezing panic.

Checking me over.  Checking my chart.

Lights.  Swabs.

Gagging and tearing up.

Apologizing, over and over, and asking for a moment.

The doctor...older...stepping back, confused but waiting for me to gather hold of myself.

A second try at swabbing my throat.  I stayed rigid this time and didn't break.

He said "good job" and I felt a flush of...embarrassment...pride...something...

The assistant vanished to run tests while the doctor checked my ears and nose and throat again...palpating glands sore to the touch.  Asking again about my children and their symptoms.

He stepped out and I yanked my mask down, gasping for unhindered air.

Then chastised myself for that weakness and hoisted it back up.

The door opened again.  Rapid results all negative.

Caution to quarantine until the next set.

Diagnoses as he checked my sinuses again.  Directions.  Pressing in on those swollen glands and cautioning me to take everything as directed.  A moment's pause as he stopped to look me directly in the eye.  Then a hand-pat of reassurance..."It's all in my notes.  You don't have to remember it all."

Still nursing, so only one kind of antibiotic allowed and only at a lower dose...so...

Antibiotics.  Eye drops. Rinses.  Fever reducers.  OTCs for the post-nasal drip and cough and sore throat.  Homeopathy for increased comfort and symptom reduction.

"I'll put it all in my notes."

Referrals to specialists in case I need them.

Another hand pat.  "I don't expect you to need them."

Then out the door to discharge.

Features arranged and held on pause....blank...waiting for paperwork.

Back to the car.

Safe.

Collapse.

I did it.

I did that.

I made it through.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm sick.  Medicated.  Fuzzy and feverish.

I liken it...yesterday...to cauterizing the wound.  A painful, but necessary sealing.  Burning to stop the ongoing bleeding...just long enough to store up energy for the next step.

(In my limited, layman's understanding of that process.)

A beginning to healing.

There will be more.

They may hurt more...or less.

But now I know what it feels like.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This year I chose heal as my word.

Apparently, it chose me back...and upped the stakes...forcing my hand, maybe before I thought I was ready...but in its own perfect time.

Yesterday I was full of shame.  Full of self-loathing.

Today, I'm full of meds and a little bit of pride.

Just enough of each to write it out of me.

Just enough to take note of the triumph.

...leftovers...

 Yes, yes, we all get it...
We carry the past along with us into the present.
But...
really...
2022?

Here I am, making plans and setting intentions, and the door I closed firmly behind me swings wide open...creaking, shrieking hinges and all...

"Settle"...it intones.
"Settle down and simmer. Settle in....you're not done yet."

That healing?  Welp...

My eldest has pinkeye...and a viral congestion "thing" and we've had to hit pause again. 

Small space living means any illness requires some form of self-sequestering...and halving our living space.  Which, with a rambunctious and ever-curious toddler, is...definitely settling for less.

Ugh!

Thankfully, today...day one...the weather is GLORIOUS!  So, Henri and I are taking full advantage of open windows and open spaces (outside) while Johannes huddles up in his blanket of misery, confined to his room and blissfully excused from any technology-limits.  He's settled in comfortably, with all the comforts of computer~3d printers~Keurig...perfectly prepped for the long haul.  Now he just has to settle down enough to get those eye drops in!

And I?

I'm settling down...down...down...and setting aside my to-do list for today.

Settling in for what's likely to spread like wildfire.  

I'm settling for acceptance that there will always be things that come along to trip us up but healing as an active process means moving through them without falling.

So here I am... 

2023 ...

with last year's lesson on settling learned...no matter how many tests you decide to send my way!

...a single word to guide me...

 The year has almost chimed its farewell, and a new one beckons...full of things to come and dreams yet unrealized and moments that will become part of the story we live.
What a relief.

~~~

As I wrote previously, my intention to thrive in 2022 was thwarted at every turn, and I found the only recourse was to accept the year's demand that I settle instead.  It was a hard lesson.  A bitter defeat of my hope and my desire.  But there, you see...the word above?  Lesson?  Lesson, indeed.  And I, the unwilling student, finally learned it at the 11th hour.

My study of a year's time was that of :
settling with and settling for now and settling in and settling down and settling for always. 

It was a lesson written out in frustrations and disappointments, in discovery and acceptance.

It was...settling.

I settled.

I am settled.

And having done so, I'm ready for...

...rising back up

...breaking back out

...moving forward and moving on

What I'm ready for is what I've learned, by settling, is what I have to do before I can thrive.

I'm ready to heal.

We'll come back to that in a moment.

~~~

My partner's word for 2023 is "teamwork": his earnest hope that he'll learn to become a better team-mate.

For him, the word encompasses:

being open to other opinions or understandings

being supportive

being supported

finding his own strengths and taking the lead in those areas

taking a back seat when others are better equipped

working collaboratively

defining goals and working toward them independently and cooperatively

communicating effectively

My eldest son chose "expand" as his word to manifest in 2023: a challenge in every area.

He's setting out to:

expand his knowledge base

expand his creative output

expand his business

expand his social and support networks

expand his horizons

expand his use of his talents

expand his opportunities

etc...

~~~

I chose "heal".  I'm guiding this year to come, setting my intention and making manifest that which this past year has taught me I need.

Because if ever I want there to be a year in my future in which I truly thrive, first I have to heal the broken pieces and tend to the bits that need extra care.

If you've been here with me on these pages for any length of time, you know my longstanding motto has been "roll with the punches".  It was necessity, you see...the only way forward.  Just barrel on through despite the blows and keep moving to avoid the pain.

But I want to thrive.  I want to flourish.  I want that for my family.  I want that for myself.

I want to write this story with a happy ending.

So, I need to do the healing work.

It's broken down, in my mind, into a series of actionable tasks:

1) Heal the body:

a) I need major dental work.  I've needed major dental work.  All my adult teeth came in with fissures, and I've fought cavities and tooth decay and major dental pain my whole adult life.  But what few know is that a traumatic experience with a dentist years ago in Ohio has prevented me at almost every step, from seeking treatment. It has so debilitated me, that even the thought of scheduling a dental appointment sends me into full-blown panic and hysteria.  But I am writing the words here, to hold myself accountable...to make the appointments and allow myself the grace of having someone hold my hand the whole way through.  

b) I need to make a general appointment, and follow through on referrals, and determine what to do about my neck and shoulder pain and stiffness.  I've done it before...I can do it again.  I need to force myself to accept that PT might not be enough, and that it's not a matter of mind over matter. 

c) This body of mine needs to be allowed to recover, properly...restfully and with gentle care, from a challenging pregnancy and traumatic delivery.  I've asked more of it than I should have, and I've forced myself to push through pain and discomfort instead of listening to those warnings that I was further damaging myself.

2) Heal the heart: 

Kintsugi -that transformation from broken pottery into something precious~unique~and functional..by piecing what remains back together and binding the cracks with gold.  The beauty of highlighting the places in which you were damaged but continued on.

a) embrace, honor, and celebrate the scars that you've stitched yourself back together with

b) reparent that broken little girl who grew up feeling unwanted and unloved and unlovable, and tell her who she really is

c) embrace that devastated wife who tried her best to fix a broken man, and release her from the guilt and shame of having failed, and let her finally let it all go

d) turn the love you give to others back on yourself, and be as gentle and loyal and generous to yourself as you are to others

3) Heal the psyche:

a) silence the negative voice that bellows when you look in the mirror and choose, instead, to see yourself as your sons see you

b) accept that you can't do it all, and you shouldn't do it all, and not doing it all doesn't make you less than enough

c) reinforce your boundaries, stay resolute in your no-contact, and reach out for support when you feel yourself wavering

d) write it out

e) dance it out

f) sing it out

g) allow for tears...of sorrow, rage, humiliation, fear.  allow for the whole human experience, weak and tender, and stop steeling your spine.

h) remember who you are and what you've already overcome

~~~

Yes, this year...this New Year that's almost here...

This is my year to...

HEAL

...on failing at the intended, while succeeding at the necessary...

 Scrolling through social media in this last week or so, one theme has stood out. Whether it's family, friend, acquaintance or veritable stranger...everyone is beyond ready for 2022 to end.

2022, seemingly, was an equal-opportunity devastator.

A year that spewed disappointments...traumas...unhinged agitators and power grabs...
A year of breakdowns: emotionally, mentally, politically...in society.
A year overflowing with more than its fair share of devastating loss as good men and women fell.
A year where the good was outweighed at every turn by the horror of a reality in which the most unintelligent and most hateful were afforded not only space and time, but amplification.

It was a series of bad days, with little in between to offer consolation.

~~~

What feels like a lifetime ago, 2021 was chiming out its last and I had chosen "my word" for moving into the New Year.  Hopeful, naive, and buoyed by the excitement of a fresh step forward, I chose:

Thrive.

2022 was going to be the year in which I thrived.

Oh, the New Year and I had grand plans...grand plans indeed.  I was going to create the time and space to let my creativity thrive.  I was going to thrive as a mother and partner and person. 
I had plans, you see...a schedule and goals, and plans.
I had it all broken down into details and actionable tasks, this thriving.  I knew what was needed, and it felt within reach.
This, 2022, could be the one...the year I finally got back on track...the year I thrived.
Oh, baseless hope...and foolish wishes...

~~~

That.
Is not.
What happened.

~~~

You've only to scroll through some of my other recent posts to see all too clearly that I am not a woman thriving in the end days of 2022.  

My roots have withered or been clipped.  My habitat confines.  My few sparse blossoms are poorly tended and pale.

I am not thriving.
I am...surviving...
...on caffeine, and sugar, and the sustenance of a few good moments sprinkled in.

~~~

But what you don't see, in between words on the page or in my day to day, is that 2022 brought its own word for me...and it took this rearview contemplation as its hours run out, for me to finally see it.

That word was
Settle.

~~~

Settle

Transitive verb:
    1) to place so as to stay
    2) to establish in residence
    3) to cause to pack down
    4) to make quiet or orderly
    5) to fix or resolve conclusively
    6) to establish or secure permanently
    7) to conclude or close
Intransitive verb:
    1) to come to rest
    2) to sink gradually to the bottom
    3) to become compact
    4) to become fixed, resolved or established
    5) to adjust differences or accounts
    6) to come to a decision
    7) to conclude 

~~~

Prior to this past year, I would have shouted with the masses "Never Settle!".

I have, at times, made that my rallying cry. 

Never Settle: for the first option
Never Settle: for less
Never Settle: in one place for too long
Never Settle: into someone else's comfort zone

~~~

But this year, I learned that there is beauty in settling.  

Peace in acknowledging the "less than" and settling for what's here and now, for now.

Growth in dismissing your need to fix everything and settle with the way things are, for now.

Health in closing doors and concluding toxic relationships, and settling accounts and relationships, for always.

There is beauty in settling.

Settling for less, because more comes at costs you shouldn't pay.
Settling into routine, because the change you want will take time.
Settling down, by setting boundaries and shutting down access.

~~~

In 2022 I failed to thrive. Complete and total failure.

But...

in 2022...

I settled. 

Regularly, routinely...sometimes on purpose, sometimes by force...

I settled for what I could make do with.
I settled for what I could tolerate.
I settled into the who and what and where and when of now, knowing that change might come but not counting on it.
I settled things...and relationships.
I settled in.
I settled down.
I settled.

I settled when frustrated...when disappointed...when hurt.

I settled when challenged, by finding alternate routes instead.

I settled when knocked off course, by setting my sights on achievable goals.

I settled for less than I'd thought I wanted and found more as a result.

~~~~

And in settling, I found successes.  Maybe not thriving...ok, fine, totally not thriving, but succeeding in keeping my head/hopes/standards/expectations up...just enough to get through the minutes and hours and days of 2022.