What was the point?
Seven years ago, I needed to find a community. We were nearing an autism diagnosis and needed someone to understand. I think of that girl who came up with up with the blog title "The Broken Road." She thought it made sense, we'd had a rough road having a baby, but there we were with two beautiful babies. Yeah, autism, but we could handle it. It was broken, but it would be a beautiful road.
I think of that girl and it makes me so sad. So much innocence, hope, strength. She had no idea what was coming. Within weeks, it would be gone. That beautiful baby would be gone, the naive outlook on autism gone. That girl, gone.
Seven years ago, this blog kept me going. The moms I met... I have an unexplainable amount of respect, tenderness and love for them. They got it. They were my community. My words were their words. But as time and technology changed, so did our community. Rainbows appeared, Instagram popped into our lives and my need for this place became lesser. My need of them is met in Facebook posts and a quick sentence accompanied by an Instagram picture. Its a beautiful thing, what the Internet has given us.
But this place never became the place I was looking for in the autism world. That place was a lobby in the Early Childhood Building a few miles from our home. For weeks, I sat there waiting for my boy to come out of "class." I didn't say much. I spent my time staring at the pink nuk in a little sister's mouth. It was the same one Ellie had. I made no eye contact.
I watched in the morning as one by one, our boys were taken from us. Some went happily, some with screams and tears. I started to look at their faces- the other moms. We were all struggling. At some point, referrals started being passed. The "oh yeah, we don't do haircuts without blood shed either" stories were shared.
They were- ARE- my people. My lobby moms. My real life, I can drink coffee, or frozen adult drinks, in your living room, people. My I-can-hug-you-any-time-I-want people. (Well not one- she doesn't like that.) we have been through hell and back a hundred times. Among us, there has been the death of a child, divorce, a stroke, a child diagnosed with T1D and a husband with a catastrophic near death illness.
We are ragged and weary. Our boys are amazing and beautiful, but have put us through the wringer. We get what the word "meltdown" means. We laugh a lot, especially at things we probably shouldn't. We leave spots at the table for the massive amount of baggage and anxiety each other brings.
I can't even think of where I'd be without my lobby moms. And as much as I'm thankful for my online loss moms, I'm incredibly grateful for my in real life lobby moms.
I didn't think I needed this place anymore. I assumed thoughts could be sorted on Instagram, Facebook or over pineapple martinis. And for awhile, I was right. What was the point of this place?
But after, seven years, things aren't any clearer. I have my people, but my thoughts are all still jumbled up. Things are feeling harder. Heavier.
Maybe it's the time of year. Maybe it's the almost decade of "broken" road. Maybe it's the feeling of first time parent with kids numbers three and four. I'm seeing less beautiful and more broken. I don't like it. I don't like the jumble of pain, frustration, doubt and anger in my head. The heaviness of life post child loss and autism diagnosis is crushing. I used to wonder all the time how much it would take before I actually shattered from the weight of it all... I don't wonder anymore. I feel like I know.
I have my people. But I have MY trauma. I am finding that for so long, I operated extremely well in crisis mode. But no one can sustain that. And I can't expect that those jumbled thoughts can be untangled by leaning on others. Maybe I need to go back to writing it out. To get it out.
Maybe it's time to come back here.
