Why Am I Writing This?

©Miriam A. Mason

Here, I am borrowing a friend of mine's idea and explaining the nature of this blog.  Thank you, Jennifer Davis Green, for reminding me that speaking truth is sometimes necessary, especially in the face of adversity.  And that it is temporary and life will go on afterwards.

I'm writing this mostly because I want to move on to other better things.  I have a few other blogs.  I have two children who are the loves of my life, and who teach me and enrich my life every day.  I love music and play many instruments, the latest favorite being the ukelele.

I adore art and music and dance and theater.  I adore Shakespeare, but tenuously, as he is all inter-tangled in a relationship with my father.  I adore science, especially astronomy, physics, biology and quantum mechanics... did I mention I love science?

I homeschool my children in a very open way, allowing for partnerships to form so that everybody feels heard and understood and nobody is immune to screwing up (least of all, me).  Our relationship trumps expectation every time.

Bathtub Artiste, Photo by Miriam Mason

Warrior Prince, Photo by Miriam Mason

Due to my kids' early onset autism, which presented itself clearly to me as a chronic illness or, more accurately, injury, I researched it and went into many many very dark places around it.  I put myself on the back burner and focused on them because they are way more important.  I learned about biological responses to toxins and I discovered that I actually was kind of important too, and a carrier of a toxic body burden myself.  We continue to grow and develop in these areas and I am slowly working towards an end: golden health for everybody.  Health enough that we may enjoy our lives and laugh fully and not feel pain or anxiety or fear, and when we do feel it, health enough to *communicate* about it openly.  I've read more PubMed papers than most science majors and I've learned about statistical probabilities, medical prejudices and epidemiology.  It's a busy world in here.


 
But mostly, I share as much joy and love with my children as I can.  I try to never make them feel like they are an inconvenience... and it hasn't always been that way.  I wasn't such a great mother either when I first began.  But my hardest work over the years has been to become better.  I continue that work every day.

The bond and relationships with my children are the most important things in my life.  This doesn't mean we don't go through hard times and don't feel sadness, and we certainly don't run away from it if we do.  That's where really working on good (oh. yep. it's that word again) communication is a huge benefit.  Everybody's feelings are valid, are heard, are counted and valued.  Nobody is laughed at when they are hurting - ever, we laugh together or not together.  This is always what we aspire to in parenting.  It's harder work, but it's a far better result in the end.

Once my younger son is cool on a plane, we need to go to Australia and catch up with our Youtube hero who lives there and makes great explosions in his fabulous Thomas the Tank Engine Videos.  We need to visit Japan to buy toys, because he wants to lavish in Japanese toys.

My older son is interested in volunteering with animals.  He has a very strong spiritual path he wants to follow, and I am going to support him because it is important to him.  He wants a purpose and it's my responsibility to offer him the resources, time, attention and whatever else is needed to help him find it.

What does this treatment result in with the boys?  An older son who wants to return his allowance if he hears we are struggling with money, who is ridiculously generous to others, two sons who just offer to help me with any of my work and will jump right in, and if asked to help with something, eagerness to pitch in; two boys who are deeply empathetic to animals and other people (and they say that people with autism don't have empathy, eh - wrong).

Credit: Robin Meade, Source: http://www.facebook.com

I see the good the changes I have made in every aspect of my life.  But I need to get this stuff out first.  It's needs to be out in the open, the stories need to be told, and then I can finally close the chapter and move on without the old patterns triggering me, without the bouts of anger and depression and helplessness.  Without the sense of shame, as though I actually deserved everything that happened to me because I was born with something wrong with me.  I was broken. 

Source: http://www.facebook.com/ourmuddyboots

We have so many things to do, and the older I get, the more I want to hold tender the beautiful relationships we have as a family and that I personally have with amazing chosen family and good friends.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/lissarankin

The world is beautiful and profound, the universe an unendingly interesting place, the moons of Jupiter and Saturn may have life on them, technology is moving at light speed, quantum computers are becoming a reality, people are poignant and caught, and there are many many beautiful souls out there among them.  It is an enormously exciting time to be alive and observing our amazing little planet.  My children are the best teachers I've ever had.  Once this is written, I can close this old stale chapter in my life, and give full-time to the joys and important stuff.

In love and light,
Miriam