Don't Stop Me Now

Hello blog, my long lost friend. You've helped me through some very tough times in my life, and always been there to allow me to explore myself when I've needed to. On this morning, as I sip my daily breakfast smoothie and listen to Fiona Apple, I call on you again to help me sort out a new thought pattern circulating in my mind.

I'm a stay at home dad. This means that my life revolves around the care of my girls, who have autism and are both teenagers, and that I have little time for going out to hang with friends or seek mental stimulation. I have very little interest in going out to do most things these days, truth be told, so this suits me fine. But I would still seek certain things to stimulate the mind and rejuvenate the body and soul. These things included spending time outdoors, as that remains one of my favorite ways to get the stimulation I seek. This would usually be a quest for solitude, intending to place me in an environment without the challenges of kids on the spectrum, but also getting me away from people who mostly can't relate with a double-minority like myself (stay at home dad to two teens on the spectrum…how many of those do you know?). Honestly, I have other interests that are relatable to people, but most people are unable to see my side of life because they don't live it. I'm always feeling like they don't fully understand or comprehend unless they are somehow in the same boat. So this makes me feel less and less relatable to other human beings.

The natural consequence of this, of course, is that I've become pretty socially awkward. I never was a social butterfly. However, if you put me in a room with a stranger I get uncomfortable. It's not a setting I find myself in often these days, and I have no idea what to talk about, so I begin babbling. That never ends well, at least from my perspective.

There are a few adults in my life consistently. Laura, my ever loving and ever patient fiancé. The other caregivers in the house, whom I spend more time with these days than I do with Laura due to her busy work schedule. The faculty and staff at the girls' school, with whom I keep an open line of communication to make sure home and school are a unified front for the girls. A small handful of music friends, as well as my partner in crime in Project DIVIDE…other than that, I'm pretty much by myself most of the time. There's my sister, who adopted a special needs daughter over a year ago, and since we both took on roles in special needs families we've attained a new level of understanding and camaraderie with and for each other. However, outside of my own household and the adults surrounding the lives of the girls, she's one of the very VERY few that really get the challenges I face.

And so I'm mostly alone. I'm mostly at home. Over the last 6 months or so I've had the overbearing feeling that something was wrong. I'm mostly these days very bored. I've blamed many things, unable to see what I see today. I've blamed my recent ADHD treatment regiment of Strattera. I've blamed the weather. I've blamed not being able to go out hiking. I've blamed depression. I've blamed stress. But this morning, I'm seeing things differently. I have always had a little trouble seeing things within myself for what they truly are, and have always overanalyzed my life (usually to a negative result because I've overblown a situation and worked myself up). But this morning it seems clear. I'm bored. I'm a bit lonely because of it. And I need to find some new ways of stimulating my brain. The old ways are unproductive and lead to laziness, and the newer interests I've explored over the last few months always seem to wane in and out of my focus. I look forward to my Saturdays, which are my once per week reprieve away from home to focus on my musical endeavors. But lately, as a happenstance, other people have been requesting my production abilities on that day. Who am I to say no? But this makes down time wait for yet another week, and then another artist calls, and so it waits for another week, and the cycle continues. The work with clients is mentally stimulating, and always fun. I'm by no means complaining. I am however thinking that, since this pattern is in place, I may need to focus yet another day for Me-stuff. Either that, or I just need to start saying no to new projects. That's hard to do though. I know that I need Me-space though.

So perhaps the reason I've had so much trouble coming to grips with myself over this past super-long-super-cold winter is because I've become bored with little outlet for stimulation. Maybe it's time to change that up a bit. Don't stop me now!