When I read this post this morning it gave me a real good perspective how some people see this “Stay-at-Home” order. For some, it’s let us out of here now. For others, it’s let be safe. For some, being at home or limiting where and when a person does leave the house. To understand more about what I am saying, please read this post from Lora Farmer-Sullivan. I went to Jr. High and High School with Lora.
I just have to say that this stay at home order and the isolation that comes with it has been a way of life for me for the last 18 years. I use to try to go shopping with my kids, try the zoo, try a park, go to the mall but it was events that took much planning and carry on items that you’d think I was planning for the apocalypse. It was easier to drag my boys places when they were younger and I could put them in that double stroller ( that was a life saver) and try to get out and socialize. But as they got older, well let’s just say older autistic boys get a bit harder to move along. And I am not alone ya know in a life of semi isolation; decisions to make whether or not its worth all the anxiety they get and myself trying to get through all the sensory obstacles the world offers an autistic person. You begin to really think like an autistic person and have to decide how much fun or relaxing it’s going to be to go to a fair or festival. And grocery shopping, heck my boys haven’t been in a grocery store for a weekly shop in 10 years! When curbside pickup and delivery finally came about I really felt and still do that God heard my prayer. A prayer I prayed about for over 10 years. Why am I telling you all this? Well, I see how people are so freaked out about losing income because their jobs are closed; when my boys were diagnosed I knew right then I would never work outside the home again, and what a major decrease in income my small family would have to suffer and the toll it’s taken on my husband to have to work two jobs in order for us to get bills paid. What a toll it has taken on my marriage knowing there would be no “empty nest” someday, no adult vacations, hell hardly a date night. All said, it worked out and is still working. It is work everyday. When you grow up to be a responsible person you know that you don’t come first anymore, you care for the ones that can’t care for themselves. I watched my Granma Farmer do it my whole life when she cared for my Aunt Trudy. I think the empathy I was taught at a young age, seeing what life was like having a disabled relative, really set the ground work that helped and still helps me today. So the little things in life are the feel good stuff. Love, empathy, trust and perseverance that is the nest of life. Not a leased car, or an expensive vacation, or even money! That shit comes and goes and you can’t take it with you, you can’t even build your legacy on it. So take a step back when you think someone is not giving you what you think you deserve, take a breath before you speak about someone else’s way of living cuz you don’t really know where they have been. And be kind to your fellow man. This is the stuff that human heroes are made of, not complainers, not selfishness, not gloating. Maybe it is Gods will for all of us to take this time and really reflect and live with less, to see if we really are living, not just moving in the motions. and .
