It Changes

Daily writing prompt

What is your favorite quote?

I have a lot to process. I’ll try to remember to include quotes as I go.

I made a mess at home and I’m cleaning it up because I didn’t think about how everyone would feel in terms of being written about and as per my usual, I got letters. I just apologized and moved on- he was right. In my zeal to try and make a role for myself in Tiina’s life, I’d overstepped. No biggie, I just need to reorient my expectations. I am not trying to bully my way into anything, I am the visioning and values person. I do not only see what is happening right now, but what is happening five years from now based on pattern recognition.

But Tiina says that it takes time for other people to learn that I am not trying to wear their skin.

She’s asleep, so I’m still waiting for her to expand on that- I think it’s because people do not realize they are being seen up close. Only the ones that have something to hide seem threatened by it, but that is my experience over 25 years, not directed at any one person. And having something to hide isn’t nefarious. It’s anyone who uses a system of protection mechanisms because I can see through them. That’s the part they cannot stand. They are being recorded without them.

Because I just observe, and I would be happier writing about the animals…… and will. My life is changing, but that’s because I’ve been asked to step in where 16yo and 10yo are concerned. Not in an official, titled way- in a “mom and dad are both busy and Leslie has a car” kind of way. I have been asked to step in when Tiina needed a companion to New York. I am doing the things that a good friend would, and all I can do is show up as myself.

Time will tell all.

Time is a 10yo being grouchy with you at first and then getting an invite to their birthday party. Time is being able to look back and say, “you really did make Tiina’s life more comfortable at graduation.” It is because of these entries that I have the luxury of going back and looking. I am not driven by popularity, which is great, because I don’t have any….. well, not in the traditional sense. I’m not an “influencer” nor “mommyblogger.” I have just been writing on the Internet since before the modern era of it existed.

The rhythm of my life has been live/reflect/post since 2001.

It’s a different way to live, for sure, and an adjustment for the people around me. I have proven that I will give everyone else up to keep publishing, because I am not saying “I am a god and everyone must listen to me.” I am saying “there are seven billion people on the planet and we all have a voice. Here’s mine.” My opinion matters, but not more than Tiina’s. If she was threatened by me being a blogger, she would have said so quite plainly with Finnish flags for emphasis.

Most of the quotes I love are from Tiina because she’s just so effortlessly funny. My favorite quote from her, always, is:

Friends.

This is The Signal.

She is about to drop some truth so swallow whatever it is that I’m drinking or it will go everywhere.

Recording all these little things for me has turned into other people enjoying my weird little life and making pain not so hard to carry….. other people are willing to carry it with me. And as for using people’s real names, they get figured out anyway and I have to have a real footprint on earth. It is a personal opinion, and I am allowed to have it within limits. I am learning those limits every day because it is a new process, but I am not doing anything but recording my recollections.

My recollection of this time in my life is that transition is real. I saw a need and jumped in, and have done that classic overfunctioning thing because I am good at it…. truly reliable and remarkable as a gofer of all things. But I am overfunctioning when Tiina is reaching out for help, which is why it works.

Everything I’ve ever done for anyone in her family is because I love her. That is the story that I am trying to write, and everyone else is peripheral to it. They are not less important. Tiina is the tree and they are the branches. Love for the way Tiina and I work has led to the love of hanging with Brian and the kids as well….. because as it turns out, Brian and the kids are even more like me than Tiina is.

So, everyone, including the baby, is loved…. but time will tell as to how that all plays out. But please believe that when I’m trying to make someone’s life easier, it’s generally not anyone else’s but Tiina’s because she’s the one that brought all this into my life in the first place. It’s a balance of wanting to be helpful to her but also not to lose myself in the process. She has a huge life and I could get lost in it easily. The biggest damn difference is that it’s work I’m ready and willing to do.

It has been hard as shit learning to relate to children as a parent figure and not a buddy. It has been hard learning to navigate just about everything in terms of family dynamics because I have worked with kids. I have not lived with kids. Different ball of wax. I was unprepared for the energy that begins when I wake up because I am used to several hours of quiet, but that doesn’t stop 10yo. And even then, “living together” is in bits and spurts as I go for visits. Going to visit is not an easy prospect but at the same time, you cannot replace in-person visiting, either. I need to be offline, and the farm provides it. Even though we’re wired out there, it’s a different feel. I cannot just get lost in devices to regulate.

Tiina and Brian are both forcing me to look at autism in a different way and it is changing me, rewiring the parts of me that felt shamed all these years for the way I present. I’m just going to be awkward, I have a PhD in awkward……

But the story is not digging up the details of other people’s lives, it’s the details that get on me quite naturally.

If there’s a quote that sums all that up, it’s probably from the Bible…..