Dear Addie
As I reflect on this last chapter of our lives, I can’t help but think of time. So much of this journey is about time. The amount of time we spend researching. The amount of time we spend advocating. And of course, the amount of time we spend learning about you and the many idiosyncrasies that make you, well… you! There’s the time spent playing catch up to our peers, and far too much time spent worrying about what happens when the time comes and we as your parents are no that longer part of it.
Time.
Last week was an emotional yet exciting week and somehow, I didn’t feel prepared for it. Kind of a funny thing to say seeing it is that I hardly feel prepared for anything when it comes to parenting, but I digress…
Clara got her license; Gabe graduated middle school and is now headed to join big sister Clara in high school and you graduated elementary and are now headed on the next chapter of your journey in middle school.
I’ve spent years waiting for this week, this moment in time and I still wasn’t ready. I felt like someone had hit the fast-forward button, but in reality, it was just that in all the chaos of our lives, time never stopped - it kept moving whether we were ready or not. That's just life, Addie. We’ve been ultimately running this race of catching time, catching up to where society says we should be, catching up to your peers since you were 16 months old and were being told of all the things you should’ve been doing. It’s like we are constantly chasing something that I ultimately fear the most in the end – not having this all figured out before my time is done. That feeling is heavy.
I’ll admit I was “that” parent last week – a very hot mess of emotions. The tears I cried, I seriously could’ve filled a lake at your 5th-grade graduation, were not only for being so unbelievably proud of you all, but exhausted by the emotional and mental strain such a journey has on an autism family like ours, but please know that even with that it doesn’t take away the fact that YOU did it! We all did it. One Team, One Dream. …and now I feel like we need a week-long family nap time. Where do we sign up for that?!
It was an emotional week, that I didn’t feel ready for, but it happened and we could have been prouder of all of you.
Keep it up Ad. You’re doing great! I can’t wait to see what the next chapter holds for us.
Enjoy the Summer!
Love,
Mom
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