As the end of the month of December nears, I find myself in a transition of sorts. I had just gotten over being sick with a lingering cough for about six weeks. Alex was away for the last week and a half on a case in Alaska. We just had Hanukkah and Alex back home with us for the final day. Lastly, the kids are getting through their last week of school before the winter holiday break.
During the time frame of the past two months, I started my first blog, Lily and the Roses ~ Creativity with Autism, Twins and Military Adventures (lilybrose1948.blogspot.com). This is something that I had been thinking about doing for several years and finally sat down one day and just started writing. I wish that I had started this back in 2008 during Alex's deployment to Iraq. This would have been a wonderful outlet for me. The reality at the time however, of being pregnant with our twins, enduring the deployment and signs of autism in our then two year old Jake, did not enable me to be clear minded, or have the wherewithal for such an undertaking. As they say, timing is everything. By the time that I started my first blog this year, it seemed that I had so much of what I wanted to say just flow right out of my head, through my fingers and onto the blog-canvas. It seemed that my writing was going to have to play catch up to where my life is at this point right now. This was going to become an interesting and very fulfilling journey for me.
Speaking of timing, it seemed that my life has been heading to a point where I needed to take our family's autism advocacy to a platform for raising more awareness, then just speaking to friends and people that I had met along the way. That was all nice and dandy, but it wasn't going to get us very far with raising awareness on a bigger platform. I was at a point where I felt that I had so much to share about our experience with autism and raising awareness.
That time for me began two months ago, with my first blog post: Who Pressed the Fast Forward Button (http://lilybrose1948.blogspot.com/2012/10/who-pressed-fast-forward-button.html). Once I started writing, the posts just kept flowing, and it felt great to share so much of what I had been storing inside of my busy brain. I had found a wonderful way to to raise awareness, by sharing about our family's experience; by sharing something personal.
Looking back, I realize how far we have come in our journey, since we had first received Jake's autism diagnosis in the summer of 2009. There was a time that talking to family, friends and people I had just met, was almost unbearable for me to do, because it was so painful to talk about. We spoke to our families first, and then to friends, and then we would just tell people with whom we felt comfortable. Eventually, after going to so many therapy sessions with Jake, and talking to other parents who were sitting there and waiting for their kids, I got to a point where I would talk to anyone who was interested in talking about autism. I really didn't care who I was speaking to - if they were willing to listen, I was going to talk about autism. This was the start of the healing process for me. The more I opened up about our family's experience, the better I felt. It was incredibly empowering to release the shackles of what society would think about an a-typical family. I didn't care anymore, and I had bigger fish to fry. I was becoming my son's number one advocate. He had my heart, and I became his voice.
I recently decided to start my second blog, Creationlily (Creationlily.blogspot.com) where I display my artwork, music compositions and travel photos. I wanted to have a second blog to focus purely on creativity. I would have that be separate from my life - blog, where I talk about autism, military life and our family. Even though all the things that I write about in both blogs are connective aspects of my life, I wanted a purely creative blog to display my work, and to have that be my focus here. In doing so, my thought was that it would provide further inspiration to be creative, through the process of sharing about creativity. I published my first post on December 19th, The Inspiration for Creationlily (http://creationlily.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-inspiration-for-creationlily.html) and thus had begun the next chapter of my life. Right before the start of the new year.
The experience of writing has been nice in other respects as well. It has enabled me to reach out with my words and rekindling old connections as well as creating new ones. We all effect and inspire one another. I truly value and appreciate those people in my life, no matter how near or far, who encourage and support me on a personal level, with our autism path and military life. With this, I close by wishing you all joy and peace in welcoming the new year.
Happy holidays from our family to yours,
Lily and the Roses
