For my Aaron, my bright boy

What’s it like to parent a kiddo with neurodiversity?

Your heart gets to be like the strongest muscle you have.

For it breaks and grows and cracks and gains and stutters and expands all in a day.

My heart is the strongest organ of mine.

It holds my wisdom, it is my north star.

It tells me the story is never done being written, it is developing as we speak.

It is meeting another kid with autism in a pool line while we wait for the two buses of kids to leave, a camp, a grief, bereavement that your kiddo can not quite yet join them, your work schedules busted and bruised, the worry of money and his sanity ever on your mind.

But there is little help or respite in this stage, that is the truth, and you do better when John holds you in your madness and says, there is nothing to be done love, this is what it is, there is nothing to change, this is it.

This is it.

What is it like to parent a kiddo with neurodiversity?

For me it has brought in all the colors, black, yes, tired pizza nights, netflix days and a deep understanding that you do not have your shit together.

It’s also the shitshow of a vacation that they turn to you and say, that was fun, you’re tired and cramped, brittle and bananas, and they are gracious enough to remember the good stuff.

It’s you taking a shit and he loses his mind because of the swamp cooler being noisy and you want to scream, but you don’t and two minutes later, gathering himself, he turns the fan back on, the noise reverberating in your house and he asks, why do we do this, what is the degrees?

And your heart and your awe grow in such numbers you feel dizzy.

It’s special and it’s hard.

There are many who don’t understand but fuck them anyway, I am raising a human to not feel so much shame.

There are those that look at you sideways and give you a stiff upper lip, 

To those I say you are missing a fun dinner table.

There are eggos and fancy risotto at this table, depending on the day.

A margarita helped this dialogue, sometimes it’s a sober reconciliation, we are all doing our best so shut your goodman mouth and try to be a kind person.

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