World Autism Day!

 The irony that it is World Autism Acceptance day and I'm finding it so hard to see past the demand of it to make a post. I'm also trying to regulate so maybe I'll use my dysregulated self to make a vulnerable and real post to maybe get some of this out. 

Warning it might be all over the place because that's where my brain is at. And this is just the iceberg of it.

This was me and my daughter's fun day this morning. It's her fun play therapy and equine therapy followed by funfetti pancakes... her favorite. It's always early for us and today being dreary and cold made it harder physically. We had to walk a quarter mile to the restaurant, because of all the construction downtown has taken the majority of parking away. I also had the wrong shoes for that. Waitress was great. Food was great. They know us enough and even checked in to make sure it wasn't too loud.

Got home, after 5 hours. Rested. Even got a nap in. Only to wake up to tons of emails needing addressed. Business stuff. School stuff. Find out due to some school changes I'll have to take another 9-hour semester at some point to graduate when I want to. Fine. Still trying to figure what that looks like so I won't have to change things again. 

Then conversations with my husband about our journey away from organized religion, the anger I feel towards so much of it, but still feeling spiritual and connected to Jesus and the love he preached. 

Followed up with some research coding for some co-research I'm doing with a PhD candidate from another university that is amazing, BTW. This quieted my mind a bit, until I was finished. 

Reminded of other assignments I need to work on and even though I'm ahead my mind fools me into thinking that I'm falling behind not working on them. But I can't tonight. I wouldn't do it justice. 

And then a good friend (thank you, Kim) sends me this, not even realizing I'm struggling, and I'm finally breaking enough to let it out in tears versus frustration. 

https://youtu.be/Ljjzf0Dx2pY?si=ELYL3wnrBTTV5gOq

Happy World Autism Acceptance day! Especially to two of my kiddos, Ridlee and Ryker (and probably Heston), the latter of which got his official diagnosis just a few weeks ago.