The last couple of weeks were challenging for me.
All progress in therapy seemed to grind to a halt. My son was acting out. I was frustrated and tired. It wasn’t the best of times. When we began this journey we were told these regression periods would happen. They were to be expected and would often come before a period of growth. Remembering that and living through it are two different things. This impacted life in all forms. I founds myself discouraged and frustrated as I wasn’t reading the book I was supposed to and I had made a commitment to myself. Then I remembered there was a book I had been reading. Sure it wasn’t “Does Santa Exist?’ or ‘The Crucified God’ but it was a book that made an impact on me, a book that touched my life.
That’s what the point of this project is, isn’t it? Reading things that change me, shape me?
Well over the last few weeks I found myself reading “I’m here” by Peter H. Reynolds from time to time. It was a book recommended to me by someone (I can’t remember who – I’m sorry if it was you) to encourage and support me as I worked through X’s therapy and dealt with autism in general. When I ordered it I though we could read through it together. After skimming it I changed my mind. I’ve kept it for myself as a reminder during those hard times, those withdrawn times that he is in fact connecting and that he is just doing it a little bit differently. It is a simple book. A book that might mean nothing to you if your experience if different from mine but it is a sweet story that speaks of different types of connection and different ways of seeing.
Things have progressed just as they said. My son woke up one day and things had settled. He struggled less with the concept that speech was necessary. He tried more words, different words and seemed to understand that we weren’t going to quit, it was something he would have to live with. What the therapists had predicted did indeed come to pass. This morning he asked his father as he left for work if he was excited to go. This kind of spontaneous questioning was rare and fleeting in days past. It’s working. It’s work but it is working.
So I apologize for last week and the lack of updates on my progress. I will endeavour to do better in the future but sometimes life takes precedence in the hierarchy of things to do. For this week I’m counting “Preparing for Christmas: Daily Meditations for Advent” as the book for me. I’ve read a bit ahead and will be finished by the end of the month so I have to fit it in somewhere and it might as well be here. What I’ll read next, I’m not sure. What I do know is I look forward to sinking into some time of my own once more. It feels right to be back at it again. It feels good to have our rhythm back once more.
