The year began with a celebration at our house with friends made over the past few years. Friends who understand me and have gotten to know me better than I have let past friends get to know me. I am honest about my feelings and my struggles. I am myself around them and they love me regardless 😀.
No pretending to be the perfect mom or the perfect wife or the perfect friend.
My husband loves his newish friends too. They bond over bowling, poker or cornhole, drink bourbon and complain about their wives. 😆
We are blessed. And that’s even with me not being able to be there for them as much as I want to. This year I resolve to give more. These friends are worth it.
By noon on the first day of 2020, my husband and I were in sunny Florida for a quick visit to see his parents. A short trip to relax and reconnect while my kids spent time with their father.
We ate, I napped, we relaxed by the pool. We went walking on a trail and saw alligators and iguanas and exotic birds. We played card games.
I wrote this post. My husband helped his parents around the house. He went for a run while I did yoga. Both of us have made resolutions to be healthier this year. I’m a healthy eater but I stopped working out last year when I started graduate school. I can’t run like I used to. I don’t have much time to go to a gym. But I’m trying to make a little time a day for yoga. It’s good for my muscles as well as my mind. It calms me, it grounds me. It centers me.
I have a couple of weeks off from school and I’m taking advantage of it to read novels. I have missed reading novels. I’m on my fourth. In two weeks I will have to stop reading fiction and focus on my studies. If you are wondering where I have been lately, I have been immersed in school, my work, my kids. I have had barely any time to give to my wonderful husband, or to my cherished blog.
I crave balance. How does one juggle when so many balls are in the air. This year I aim to perfect the art of juggling. If anyone has the secret I am all ears.
My kids have been away since Christmas. I got to see my son for a little bit when he came home on New Year’s after working and hanging with his friends. I talk or text with him every few days.
My daughter is another story. What I would give to just be able to talk to her on the phone when she is away. To text her. Instead I am asking my son and my ex for regular updates. My ex sent me a video of her dancing. That made my day. And I got to see her via FaceTime once. She smiled and waved as I said hi and told her that I missed her and that she looked so pretty. Then she started to cry a bit so we cut the time short.
After I hung up, I was alone with my thoughts running wild. Was she crying because I interrupted her time with her dad? Because she was confused with the whole FaceTime thing? Or was she trying to tell me something else? That she wanted to come home?
This is the way the mind of the mother of a special needs child works. It never rests, even while on vacation in sunny Florida.
As I recline on the couch reading a book, I take a break to text my ex and make sure he reminds my son he has to put in for his days off at work, buy his college textbooks. We text about my daughter’s mood, sleep habits and bowel movements. “Are they solid? What color are they? Do they taste like chocolate?” (“No, cheese,” was his response.) Because if you don’t laugh, you cry.
This post has been my rambling attempt at gathering my thoughts so I can make my New Year’s resolutions. Some say resolutions are stupid. I like to take a few moments at the beginning of each year, think about what I got done, what I wish I did better. What I should have done and what is really, really important to get done in the year ahead:
For 2020,
•Find more balance and peace
•Pay more attention to my own health, ie make those doctors appointments and keep them.
•Be more confident and assertive at work. Ask for help if I need it and give help whenever and however I can.
•Focus on making my daughter and son be as independent as they can be. Stop putting on my daughter’s socks and shoes for her. Stop nagging my son about school and work and stop editing his papers and reminding him of things he should already know.
•Allow myself to think about the future and plan for it.
•Give my husband and my marriage the attention they deserve.
•Write more. It is therapy and I need all the therapy I can get.
•Lastly, the hardest goal but probably the most important for my mental health: Move further outside the bubble world I built around myself. Be more connected. Make that call I’m always meaning to make. Ask that person to meet for lunch or dinner. Make plans with those other autism moms. Find a way.
Ending here with a quote that’s a bit spiritual, and I’m not all that spiritual, but it spoke to me:
“I will follow the upward road today; I will keep my face to the light. I will think high thoughts as I go my way; I will do what I know is right. I will look for the flowers by the side of the road; I will laugh and love and be strong. I will try to lighten another’s load this day as I fare along.” Mary-Susanne-Edgar
Happy New Year
Leave a Reply