As of today I’ve been pecking away in this space for five years. It feels like it couldn’t only be five years. I’ve lived lifetimes since then!
I started this blog just after we left New Hampshire and moved to California. I hadn’t found a home in our new location, I was so very sick, and I felt this need to communicate with someone. I’ve also always felt ….haunted, maybe?…. by the need to write, but so terrified by how much I wanted to be good at it that I barely wrote anything at all. I found myself at this moment in my life where everything I was doing wrapped up, and I was left with this wide open future and no idea what I wanted to do with myself, or was even capable of doing. I didn’t have kids, I didn’t have much of a career, and the broadness of my open life was almost claustrophobic.
2005 was a trying and yet wonderful time. We were so desperate to have a baby, but by then that wasn’t even the central issue anymore. I was so sick, and we had no health insurance to make that change. I spent my days on pain pills, and if I did one thing in my day – cooked dinner, put the slipcovers on the couches, took a shower – that was a productive day. The posts back then were few and far between, and I think that’s because I was in too much pain to put thoughts together, but also because I was surrounded by some of the greatest friends ever. There were so many people who took such great care of us then.
By 2006, health insurance kicked in and we started trying to get me healthy. That sucked, and I am loathe to think about it too much. It was a really tough time. But this is the year that I really started to discover myself. This was when I did most of the work on my craft book that didn’t go anywhere but was tremendously educational for me. This was when I started to appreciate how essential creation is to my identity and accepted that no vision of my future could be complete without it.
Of course, as soon as I realized what I needed to be happy in my life without children, children became a possibility. Doesn’t it always work that way? Again, looking back my first reaction is always, “Boy, what a hard year.” A move away from beloved friends, miscarriage of a hard won pregnancy, failing to make a place in my new community, a fire threatening our beloved home, but then, also, beauty. Finding healing in the hard work of my hands, getting pregnant with Atti and staying that way, communing with this new little life in me.
2008 was the year everything changed for us. In the very best ways, even though it came at such a cost. Nearly two years later I can’t really even write about that time when Atti was in the hospital, or the fear I’ve had to learn to walk with as we work towards his future. It’s so terrifying and heartbreaking to think back on, but it was just so wonderful to have him, none of it seemed to matter.
I think that is the biggest gift that blogging has given me. I look at the big events of all these years and when you add it all up, I should be in the red. I shouldn’t be joyous when I’m dealing with miscarriages and moves and prolonged chronic illness. The life that I’ve been given is ridiculous and hard and even sometimes ugly in the big picture. But somehow, it doesn’t really feel that way. I have a record of all the little tender mercies, all the oases of beauty that sustain me, all the loving kindnesses of supportive readers, and when you add it all up it so outweighs the big hard things that I am happy. Truly, profoundly, almost unbearably happy.
I can’t thank you guys enough for being here through it all with me.
Isn't it funny how the hard times make us look at life a bit more positively? My mom had to work hard with me to make me the way I am. I may still have temper tantrums (and I'm TWENTY) but I wouldn't be here without my mommy. Atticus is truly lucky to have you as a mommy. He may say, "I hate you" when he gets older but he doesn't mean it, I swear. I did the same thing.Funnily enough, it's when people say, "You must be really strong to deal with what you have. You don't look like you have what you have," is when I realize how little people know and how thankful I am to have my mom. When I say Autism or Cerebral Palsy, people imagine the kids in wheelchairs who can't control their drooling or actions. Those are the most extreme, worst possible cases of both. Most of us are like Atti and me, strong enough to show we're different but mild enough to not interfere much with living normally. We're slower but we're not "disabled" about emotions. We're definitely not retarded. Your Atti is bright, let me tell you. Very, very bright.
Wow, five years! I love the pictorial retrospective!
All this will make you a better stronger person.Life is not easy, its not for wimps.Your doing just fine !!!I love how you incorporated the pics with your own words.Diane
I love your guts.
I agree with the last comment. You are gutsy and real. I love reading your blog and am so glad I found it.
Really you pay me too big a compliment, I'm here purely for selfish reasons, hearing about Atti's achievements and seeing the cute photos.No really I am… grin. Congrats on 5 years.
Thank you for the quirky, truly inspiring things that you write that remind me of joy, blessings and hope when I have a hard time seeing it. Thank you for the smile that I have right now as I get ready to turn in.
The heartbreak you've gone through and all the things you guys have overcome, and the grace that God has given you, gives me hope.Way to go on 5 years of blogging. I'm so glad we found each other on this crazy Internet.
Reese, thank you for posting this message today, along with the photos and showing us your progress. I praise God for your success and celebrate with you the life of your son, and of your family. You all look wonderful and I'm encouraged by your story.I have had some hard things in life too, but have recently come to understand they weren't necessary. It wasn't the life I was given, but the life I chose (because of other choices I made that led me here).God has something wonderful for all of us and we can make it easier and quicker to get there by learning how it works, and using His Words. When we speak out loud His Words, in agreement with what He has said about something we need in our life, then it comes to pass quicker and easier.If I had only known that when I started this journey!! LOL But it wasn't wasted, as your hard times also made you the beautiful and patient creation you are today.God bless you and your family and I believe that He will continue to lead you beside still waters and to lie down in green pastures.There is more to come! Rejoice!Lisa