I’m not even sure where to start today, so I’ll begin as I often do - cozying up with a cup of tea, still in my pjs, and looking down at my laptop, which a massage therapist once warned me was the worst posture one could take while working.
I write about what feels true and present in my life, which is difficult to do when it seems EVERYTHING has happened in the past couple of weeks. So I’ll break it down into sections.
My partner got appendicitis and had surgery. It came out of nowhere on a Friday night. We were in the ER just before 1am, admitted to the hospital by 6am, and didn’t leave until 5pm on Saturday.
As is often the case with surgeries, the hospital was just the beginning. The first few days of his recovery were exhausting for both of us. He couldn’t bend over, struggled to get up and down, and needed to take medication every 6 hours (not too bad, considering, though it further disturbed already restless sleep). I tried my best as a caretaker but felt tired and uncertain and moody.
We had fun, too. We spent a lot of time together. The doctor wanted him to go on walks, so we took slow loops around the block, making up stories and literally stopping to smell the roses.
This experience also seemed to accelerate our relationship. We learned a lot about each other in a few days - he was forced into a new level of vulnerability with me, and I had to try to figure out how to meet his needs, and my own, while honoring his autonomy. This spurred a few serious conversations about our future, which were both tender and scary.
My uncle passed away.
The first day I went back to work in the office, when my partner was well enough to care for himself during the day, my mom called me as I was pulling in. She asked first how my partner was doing, but I immediately knew something was wrong because she was calling in the middle of her workday.
“Uncle Leland passed away this morning,” she said. My dad’s last surviving sibling (he had been one of five). Now it was just him.
It wasn’t surprising. He’d had Parkinson’s and been confined to bed for awhile. But I skipped my first meeting as I walked into the office because all the voices sounded happy, and I couldn’t bear to fake it when I needed to process.
My boss was wonderful and sent me home. My partner was lying in bed and couldn’t do much but asked how I was doing. I told him that I was fine. Then I laid on his chest and cried.
I considered the role of autism in my life.
In the first few days of his recovery, my partner and I started reading Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, a wonderfully creative novel told from the perspective of Christopher, a 15-year old boy with autism.
“You think a lot like Christopher,” my partner remarked offhandedly.
I wasn’t sure what to do with that comment. I am a logical thinker, though I don’t have quite the intensity of aversions that Christopher does (to the colors yellow and brown, for example, or to different foods touching each other).
Later, I caught myself stimming at night (in particular, rocking in bed). I don’t do this often and had never thought anything of it, until I considered it in conjunction with my partner’s comment. Could these be signs of autism?
I brought it up to a close friend of mine who has autism. She smiled before I was even done talking. “I was pretty sure you had it after our first conversation,” she said. She listed out some of the signs - my deep empathy and big feelings (signs of autism more common in women than in men), situational difficulty with sleep, OCD diagnosis (OCD is sometimes co-morbid with autism). We both think through things thoroughly and need a lot of alone time. I’m not sure if this plays into it, but like the character Christopher, honesty is important to me, and I have difficulty breaking rules. It made so much sense to me why I clicked with this friend immediately - maybe our brains worked the same way.
The more research I’ve done, the less compelled I’ve felt. Some of what I’ve read resonates, but much of it doesn’t. That could also be somewhat conflated by the fact that much of the research on autism has been focused on boys with more evident, external symptoms.
I’m not sure where I stand now. I’m interested in learning more and better understanding myself. But I also don’t feel the need to change anything. I like who I am, and the way that I think.
My ex texted me out of the blue.
This was immediately destabilizing. I wasn’t sure how I felt at first, except for panicked. It was a perfectly innocuous check-in message, but I did not feel like I could have him in my life right now.
I told him that, and he was kind and understanding. It was easier than I thought it would be to set that boundary.
My boss retired.
On its own, this sentence sounds mundane. People retire all the time. I knew this was coming for months and was surprised at the depth of my emotional reaction. Though we will stay connected, I am grieving.
I accepted the offer at my current place of employment 2.5 years ago because my boss saw me as a human first. This has remained true. She celebrates my successes with me and has been an enthusiastic champion of my writing (she also reads my Substack). Last year, she helped me feel prepared for my first mammogram (everything was fine!). We send each other photos of eagles and otters and whales we encounter in the wild.
I am thrilled for her and will miss her deeply.
I gave notice to my landlord.
My own move is approaching. Though I’ve been committed to this transition to semi-full-time writing for awhile, giving notice on my home - a place with cherished memories where I feel safe and content - feels monumental.
Oddly, I think I’d built it up so much in my head that it was strange to be done within 3 text messages with my landlord, who was incredibly kind and encouraging about my next steps.
I will grieve my home and Seattle and the people I adore here with my whole heart. And I am also excited, and convicted by, my next adventure.
So that’s a summary of the past couple of weeks. I’ve cried more in this time period than I have in probably the last few months, and I’ve woken up with nightmares. I have felt dysregulated and anxious and exhausted. I’ve been confused, unable to pinpoint my chaotic emotions to anything in particular, though writing it all out helps validate why I might be feeling so much. Aside from the sea of unsettling feelings, I have also felt overwhelming gratitude for my community - friends who came to the hospital or dropped off food; colleagues who offered condolences.
One of my baked-in reactions has been to look for something to change so I can return to a more peaceful homeostasis. That would be vastly more comfortable. But I’ve been challenging myself to sit with the feelings that are coming up. It could be that something is unaligned. Or it could also be that I am being stretched, that I am both strong and soft enough to navigate fear and loss and uncertainty, and that’s why life is presenting it to me now. One of my dear friends who is in grad school for counseling shared with me that healing happens when the body feels safe enough to do so, and that it can bring up a lot of buried emotion. I’m not sure whether that’s the case for me, but I don’t want to write it off, either (if only because that’s the most comforting way to look at things). Regardless, I want to believe that the last two weeks have opened a deeper well in me. That I’ve increased my capacity for love, that I can slow myself down and care for others, that I can work to both honor and challenge my reactions.
I’m debating how much to share even as I’m writing this. I don’t want my writing to feel like an overwhelming tabloid or complaint or call to any specific action. The reason I share the truth in its nakedness is twofold: 1) It helps me understand and love myself better, and 2) I hope readers will see themselves in these snippets of life and emotion.
This is not a highlight reel. This is messy and beautiful real life.
Share this post