Looking Past Scary Beginnings

I have been thinking all day about some conversations that I have had with friends recently, especially ones concerning my last post about advocacy. Maybe this is not the best day to do a lot of deep thinking, and even less so writing about how I'm changing things up due to the fact that I am battling a case of strep. Maybe my extra sensitive feelings are serving me well in giving me an extra push that I needed, I don't know. I'm going with it, though.

I've had an achy feeling lately. Not one that originates with my physical body, but achy on another level. When I say lately, I mean the feeling started nagging at me probably 2 years ago, or so, and has gotten stronger, more frequent. What began as a feeling of restlessness has exploded inside my being as a feeling of persistently being out of place. A wrong place, wrong time feeling. I'm no stranger to feeling misunderstood, or out of place. This has been a lifelong feeling on my part, but what I'm talking about is different. This is a feeling of reliving something that has long past, but that I can't let go of. A piece of life that has long since gone.

The only issue is that I was unaware of what this meant. What part of life had I outgrown?

I am old enough now that this isn't the first time, and probably not the last time this has happened. Little things turn into big frustrations. My nerves get on end, and life in general seems rather forced instead of a free flowing of experiences. Plainly put, I feel discontent.

Feeling discontent is a weird place to be. It's not depression, or sadness. It's not any emotion that is easily summed up in a word, or two. It's just a feeling of being .... not fulfilled, of something missing. In order for me to remedy this feeling I have to find the root of my discontentment, and address it, even if it means facing harsh truths, and scary beginnings.

As I poured over all the things that make up my days I found that one seemed to stick out more than any as the likely culprit, and that activity is advocacy. I feel like the advocacy scene in general has changed. I feel like I have changed. I feel like so much has changed in all sorts of ways that I've outgrown it, and it's outgrown me. I'm burnt out.

But, then this is a huge part of who I am, isn't it? I mean who am I if not an activist?


I don't know the answer to that question.

I think it's never ending, really. I am not the same person I was 20 years ago, and I won't be the same person who does the same things 20 years from now. Not knowing how to proceed isn't a good reason to stay stuck in a rut that I know no longer serves me.We all change with time. Life changes with time, and we need to be flexible enough to bend with it.

So, my blog content might be changing up a bit. To what exactly, I am not quite sure. It's likely to be more about my experiences in life, and less about autism advocacy. I've been an autism blogger for about 9 or more years, so this is a hard concept for me. My children are all almost grown. One is getting married in less than 2 months! It's at a point where I feel like I've said what needs to be said, and I leave it to others to pick up where I leave off.

Of course, I will still be talking about my life, and that is a life of an autistic woman. My journey will still include lots of posts about how I perceive the world, and how I navigate through the trials, and joys of life. This won't change, but I think there will be much less content coming from me about the autism community as a whole.

If you've made it to the end of this rambling post, thanks for your patience. I hope it made some sense to you, and I hope you'll continue to check in from time to time to read my writing, or just pop up, and say hi on my blog's facebook page.