If it’s possible to be self-aware to a fault, I would like to raise my hand for candidacy as president of that club. All my life I have worried, fretted, sweated over what people think of me; over how much space I’m taking up; over how I appear to the people around me. I’ve spent countless hours considering the impact of my words and actions on others (and, in an ironic twist, remaining completely oblivious in, doubtless, countless other situations).

Which is why this past hectic week has been such a gift to my fear-ravaged soul.

The boys each had their end of year/Christmas concerts with their schools: The Kid’s was an all-day affair last Thursday, beginning with a bus ride to a local school with a hired theatre where he and the rest of the students would perform both a matinee and evening performance of their choreographed and costumed dance, set to “The Final Countdown” by Europe. I remember running and spinning to this song in a past life, constant awareness of my “form” and endurance and energy level plaguing the course. This time, though, there was only him: TK blasting, as usual, through our expectations and crushing it onstage. His grin lit up the room. There were tears–and not just on my face. I sat by his kindy teacher from last year for both performances, and she brought her daughter–who had helped out last year–along. “I just love James,” the daughter told me, and the three of us matched TK’s grin as we watched him dance across that motherfucking stage like he owned it alongside his classmates. He was lit up like a Christmas tree by that incomparable smile of his, wobbly front tooth and all (though the sequins on his costume didn’t hurt either).

At the evening performance, his teacher brought him to me a couple of songs before they went on–apparently he’d gotten upset when he couldn’t locate us in the crowd–and I sat with him on the floor as we awaited his class’s turn. When that turn came, I returned to my seat beside his kindy teacher and waited. We wondered if he’d pull it off again, given the emotional obstacle he’d just endured and the exhaustion of such a full day. Then we watched–and embraced each other as he gave another knockout performance. He was rewarded with Oreo ice cream and an early exit to head home, where, after we put them to bed, a thought popped unbidden into my head: how boring it must be to have a “normal” child…

Enter Little Brother for his Monday morning preschool performance. He tossed his “shy/excited” smile across at The Husband and me, along with some exuberant waves, and launched into what can only be described as World’s Most Enthusiastic Performance. There was stomping, waving, dancing, grinning, singing. “We Mish You a Merry Christmas” was a highlight. Getting so many words wrong, so wonderfully, as he does (for example: sharp for him is shark–because, DUH, shark teeth are sharp). He bounced back to us afterward, red-faced and joyful and undeniably pleased with himself.

And I realised I don’t have “normal”–I have neurodivergent and neurotypical, but I also have quirky, for both, in spades. I have a wonderful lack of self-consciousness doubled and modelled to me. I have freedom times two, walking through the world, personified.

This is healing. It’s annoying, because it means my toes are constantly stepped on and my boobs constantly run into, but it is healing.

I have heat at Christmas time–have I mentioned that at all?–but, stepping out into it from LB’s concert, I have a counter-intuitive lightness along with the sweat and sun because I have a boy playing in that heat in his sunhat with his friends who bids me goodbye with a kiss and wave because he knows he is loved. I have a boy who waits for me as I take LB into his preschool and who, when I return to the car to take him to school, has left a map on my phone because he’s been traveling while I was gone. “Where have you been today?” I ask him, and see that this morning we get to talk about Italy, where–he already knows because he’s checked–they drive on the right side of the road. This is who they are, these unhurried souls who tell me things like “M’s my therapist because I have an apple brain” and “H’s feet are bigger than mine because he’s older,” without any, as yet, worry or concern about differences. How, exactly, do I bottle and extend and absorb that, please?

Before we left America, on our last Sunday before Christmas Sunday, our pastor-friend gave a sermon about the angel visiting Mary. The most outrageous thing that angel said? “Do not fear.” Then he named us, those sitting there that day, he named us knowing the things that we’re afraid of. I wept as he told us not to fear, knowing Sydney and goodbyes were on the horizon. But not yet knowing that concerts full of joy were too.

When we were in Tasmania a couple of months ago we entered a room in the museum that people were queued up for. A gradual approach revealed that it contained an interactive art installation–participants placed a mask over their faces and threw a china plate at a wall, allowing it to shatter and fall into a bin below.

I hesitated. There were people in line–they’d be watching. What if I did it wrong? What if I looked like a weirdo?

The desire to shatter dinnerware trumped the (ridiculous and impossible) possibility of “getting it wrong.” I popped the mask on and threw and heard the satisfying shatter. And my boys watched, cheering me on.

Yesterday I was tired and sore and sweaty after a marathon Monday, and when the boys and I stumbled in at 6 pm all I wanted was a shower. So, while our takeaway dinner sat on the counter and they played with cars on the floor, I absconded to my bathroom and jumped into the lukewarm water. Because–and I may not have mentioned this–for all our new house does have, it does not contain a single bathtub. So I stood–STOOD!–and let the water run over me. Soon enough, naturally, I heard my name yelled out, followed by one set of feet running toward me. LB spotted me in the shower and, in a flash, was naked, climbing in with me. A minute later, in came TK–same protocol. I remained there, the pain of being a woman radiating through my lower back and abdomen and legs, as these two creatures stood beside me, unabashedly hogging the water and unselfconsciously naked beside their mom. This is probably inappropriate, I thought. And I don’t give a shit. “HOTTER!” screeched TK, and the water kept flowing, running down the three of us like a baptism.