today after a long long time of silence i finally sat down and began to write. i wrote because my silence was disturbing me. i wrote because i have untold stories. i wrote because it felt like agony.
it felt like autism (especially, although there is much in life these days) was eating my words.
i wrote and wrote and it ended up being about three different posts. but the internet slowed and slowed and stopped saving properly, and the one that most needed to be told, disappeared. gone.
i lost it. i ended up crying on the bathroom floor so desperately angry at God. it was as if the universe was silencing me. as if God was shutting me down. when i finally found my words- they were stolen away- and i was left with the agony of the echoing stories.
God knew i was angry about much more than the erased post, but it took me a while to see the anger i have at the stories themselves. the anger at the agony of them. that these are my stories. stories i didn't chose. my stories of broken. of never-ending-ness. of stagnation and unknowning. my same boring stories, day after day, week after month after years.
sometimes i feel completely swallowed by zoe and her challenges. consumed. autism eats things. it eats energy and time and hope. it eats relationships and libidos and futures. it eats family vacations and dinners and church. it eats normal. and it eats dreams. it eats light and breezy. lately it's eaten my words.
because what do i say? it's been 7 years and 7 months since i started to write about zoe. since i named this place "be still and know". i started it because of the agony of holding hard stories alone. i thought if i told mine, someone else might not feel so alone in theirs. but i'm still here, writing the same stories. i'm still here struggling with the same struggles- the "do" vs. "be".
when things are hard and unchanged for long periods of time, when 7 years later she's still carrying around a simba plush toy but only bigger, and needing someone to wash her hair and brush her teeth, you start to ask, "what do i do now?" you start to tread water. to put your eyes to the horizon with your feet kicking and your hands swirling and your head up, scanning for the next thing, a plan, something. but treading water can only go on for so long before you become exhausted.
7 years later, i'm still trying to tread water. but when you're in over your head and your tired- you need to flip over onto your back and float. you need to let go of your schemes and your control and let the water hold you. you need to trust and breathe deep and look up at the great expanse, the universe. at God. you need to be as you are, in the water, feeling your smallness against the sky and the sea.
be still and know that I am God.
as i was 7 years ago and as i will be in 7 more.
autism can't eat love, so don't give up. find your voice. don't let it be silenced.
tell the stories and let them tell you of the goodness that hides inside. let them lead you back to hope, back to light, out of agony, into stillness.
there you will find Me. and your stories will become much more.
let me show you
