This Autism Life, This Chosen Life

     I imagine mothers with neurotypical children still lose sleep wondering where their 21-year-olds are at night doing whatever 21-year-olds do, praying they get home safe and sound.

     I, on the other hand, lose sleep because my 21-year-old neurodivergent son refuses to sleep.  Or rather his body does not allow him to. His neurophysiology is on hyper-alert whenever a change in routine is occurring. Never mind the meltdowns that inevitably follow. 

     Do I wish we had a different life, a more normal one? Yes. Many times. Especially now where in my perimenopause phase I value sleep more than ever. And my mental and emotional state teeters back and forth with my fluctuating hormones. Three years ago, a friend gifted to me Matt Haig's The Midnight Library. Since reading it, it made me realize that had I had made a different choice two decades plus before, I could have had a different life. Perhaps I wouldn't have borne children who have autism. I possibly would have a normal 21-year-old who has normal sleeping patterns who doesn't have meltdowns due to a mere change of routine. However, it is quite probable that I would be one of those mothers who still lose sleep because my 21-year-old is still out at 1 a.m. and hasn't come home. Life would have handed me an entirely different set of cards to deal with that I would still nonetheless be overwhelmed and eventually questioned. 

     So, I've learned, albeit, slowly, to just take things as they are, to appreciate what I do have-- my son is here with me safe and sound, all if not most of the time. I've learned to trust in this life whenever anxiety and overwhelm come thundering and the what if's and the why's simply refuse to go away. I take it moment by moment, remembering to give myself grace especially in times of insecurity as I look at other families who are "normal". I hold myself in compassion in life's inevitable uncertainties, knowing fully how whether normal or neurodivergent, needless to say, are too many to count. 

     I remind myself of Matt Haig's lines in Midnight library-- "It is easy to mourn the lives we aren't living... But it is not lives we regret not living that are the real problem. It is the regret itself." 

     This neurodivergent life of ours, this autism life may sometimes or most of the time work the living daylights out of me, but this is our life. It was given. It is gifted. And there is a different kind of freedom and peace to finally acknowledge, appreciate it and most of all, own it for what it is as if I have chosen it. Because really, I did.  Every single day since my sons were born. 



Photo is that of a dying tree and another still in its flourishing state. This reminds me that in every life, polarities exist. They do not necessarily cancel the other one out. They both are necessary if only to appreciate the polarities themselves in their singular existence. As with our life with autism. 

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