The boys and I were watching Bluey recently, as we are wont to do when it appears on stage or screen, and per usual, the show ended with a moment I just loved. The kids were all playing together throughout the episode when one said she didn’t have to play a game a certain way because her parents told her she was special. Conflict ensued, parents were consulted, and her dad pulled her aside. To paraphrase, he said:

“Remember when mum and I told you that you’re special? Well…we lied. You’re special to us. You’re just not special to the rest of the world. All parents think their kids are the most special. But the world’s not going to think that.”

She runs off, joyful and free: “Dad says I’m not that special after all, so I can play the game!”

This is how therapy worked for me: by revealing that I wasn’t all that special. That my reactions–of anger, frustration, sadness, impatience–were actually pretty logical given the circumstances that had led to them throughout my life. That I wasn’t alone in feeling the way I felt. That I wasn’t the kind of person I thought I was–or had been pretending to be–and this was good news indeed. Freeing. I can’t tell you how many times I sat across my therapist and told him a story of how horribly I’d behaved, convinced this would be the one that would finally disgust him, and he’d listen, the expression on his face unchanging, before responding with some version of, “Yep. Makes sense.”

Did he leave me there? No, thank God. He would then explain why, given my story, my reaction made sense. And I’d know myself more because of that. But he didn’t define me by my horrible actions any more than by my (rarer) heroic ones. (There was one ultra-cringe moment when I started a story with, “I don’t know if you’ve read my blog recently” and he just sat there rather than kicking me out. Grace.) He took it all in without blinking, which allowed me to do the same. Now when someone tells me they’re “not that kind of person” I have to wonder if they know themselves at all, because we’re all that kind of person given the right alchemy of circumstance, mood, sleep, diet, and hormones. We’re all capable of awful depths and stunning glories. It’s breathtaking, really, how great and terrible each of us can be, and how freeing it is to realise that rather than be chained to some idea of who we should be. who we think we are.

Recently, after the boys each had…intestinal issues a few days apart, I told them about how I’ve shit my pants as an adult. Multiple times. Like, I’ve maybe led to the shutdown of two restaurants in NYC? (All I’m saying is the timing is suspicious.) And this morning, at my front gate while I cooled down from a run, I blasted a mega-fart before I saw a school-uniformed kid walking by (I should go check if he’s gotten up yet). I’m just saying–WE’RE ALL A MESS. And I’m much more interested in the mess than the mask.

Yesterday I went for a swim in the wintry waters nearby and ran into a friend as I finished. She was bobbing in the water as though she was relaxing in the hot springs; meanwhile I was frigid and desperate to get back to the car, where blasting heat and a travel mug of hot tea waited. She pointed out that my wetsuit may not be doing the job. Le scandale?! My Aldi-purchased, one-size-too-big bargain not good enough?! She showed me hers, that fit like a second skin. Then she bobbed around some more like this was the fucking Bahamas.

On the way to the car, I thought about how I’d been trying to make that wetsuit work for a year, how I’d convinced myself of the deal I’d gotten, only to find that it was probably the reason I injured my shoulder and was actually more cold with it than without it, as it trapped water inside the spaces where it didn’t cling to me. How much of my life I’ve spent wearing ill-fitting suits before realising, because of the grace that poured through others who told me, that I didn’t have to be that person, because the person I was? The one I am? Is already beloved, no matter what she does or doesn’t do, wears or doesn’t wear. No matter how many pants she shits.

I got into the car, but not before I–as the Aussies say–chucked that suit in the bin.

I feel like a failure every day.

I climbed into bed last night with this thought–far from the first time that’s happened–and sat with it awhile before uttering it aloud. The spectre of guilt chases me always, and sometimes it chases me down–particularly after days like yesterday, days that are full of sun and sweat and sports carnivals and early dismissals and more time at home and a late day at the office for The Husband. Days of the neighbour coming over to warn us that he found a snake in their driveway, followed by panicked questions from the boys about what it all means. Days of tennis following an already-long day, and homework following that, and never-ending laundry that does end, but not before I scream and slam the door while I’m doing it because the meditation (/medication?)? It has worn the fuck off.

Days when I, in bed, review the proceedings like I’m in a courtroom where I’m both the judge and the accused, recollecting how I gently encouraged The Kid to enter an event at the carnival and remained (perceptibly) unperturbed when he chose not to, but maybe some hidden frustration was transferred to Little Brother because when he chose not to enter the 50-metre novelty race with his age group after I not gently urged him to? I turned into an emotional ice queen. Days when all it takes for TK and I to meltdown and become adversaries is ten fractions questions. (Well, that’s not all it takes. There was also, oh, everything else.)

Motherhood’s ride-or-die, its constant companion, seems to be this singular guilt over not being everything to everyone, of inflicting less-than-perfect moments on our children that (we fear) they will carry around forever, or at least through therapy, and there are days when I cannot see around or through or beyond it to any greater truth. And on these days, I am defeated.

The boys’ current movie-on-repeat is Soul, for which I am utterly grateful, because I need it too. I need the reminder that there are no mistakes in jazz, only notes that lead somewhere unexpected. I need to remember that “the tune is just an excuse to bring out the you,” and that this is why every tune is different–and valuable. I need to hang onto the truth that life is not about long, purposeful, public strides to some finish line but is actually found in the failing, the flailing, the falling, the defeats that lead us to the bigger truths: to the melody behind it all.

Little Brother’s class, at last week’s Mother’s Day assembly, performed a song that included the words:

So let it play play play your way

Chase the blues away

With music all around

Surround yourself with sound

And the melody that we found

Nobody can bring us down

With music all around

Simplistic? Sure. But I find myself singing it all the time, and when LB is around he’ll join in, and then baby, you got a song going.

Which is the point, I think.

Not to create a perfect narrative out of life, or gloss over our mistakes so that we don’t have to feel the hard stuff, or publicly rehabilitate ourselves through revisionist-history social media posts–but to descend, unblinking (or maybe blinking a bit) into the mire of our daily lives and face it, so that we can see, embedded there, the other moments, the ones where we forgave each other and sat on the couch with our legs all tied together and told each other we (still) love each other. To see it all.

And, in so doing, to not create, but to witness the making of the song–not the one we thought we’d get, but the one we actually did. Because in grace, like in jazz, there are no mistakes.

I’m pretty sure I say this every year, but I retell a lot of stories so here it is anyway: Mother’s Day at the boys’ school is celebrated with a stall where the kids can hand over a $2 coin and, in return, gain access to a treasure trove of mum-related gift items. The presents are, naturally, donated by the mothers themselves, who are encouraged to provide something they would like to receive themselves. This doesn’t stop people from donating things like used and unwashed coffee mugs or packets of tissues, apparently, but luckily I didn’t receive either of those hot-ticket items.

One friend of mine was given a mug with #mumlife printed on it. Another was given a (hideous) necklace, and the winner this year may have been the mom whose son gave her an obviously-regifted-from-a-kid’s-birthday party unicorn and mermaid face-painting set.

In comparison, I lucked out, receiving two mugs, one with pastel leopard print and one with a sweet message, both smaller than the amount of caffeine I need but chosen and given with love. After I opened them, we headed to lunch at the local chicken schnitzel chain, where I had a glass of champagne. Doesn’t get much better than that, I suppose.

The day before, I’d gone to the ballet matinee with some friends and took the ferry back–the ferry that sells drinks–and enjoyed some cheap sparkling on the top of the boat. I watched the sun set behind me and the water lap beside me and thought, again, of how ridiculous it is that this is our life. Ridiculous that we live surrounded by this beauty every day. Ridiculous that we are touring high schools for The Kid (and, eventually, Little Brother) because when you live as a dual citizen, you have to plan for everything.

Ridiculous that we’re about to be dual citizens–if The Husband and I pass the test and interview we just received an email notification for, that now has us studying a booklet of Australian history.

Ridiculous that as I climbed off that ferry, I traversed in heels the same path I’d pounded in running shoes that morning. Ridiculous that a smaller amount of coffee in a smaller mug actually tastes stronger–and better. Ridiculous that the Mother’s Day event at their school left me claustrophobic in the crowd while it lasted, and catatonic on the couch afterward as I recovered. Ridiculous that the show-stopping song performed at the end stayed in my head all day long. And the day after. And the day after.

Ridiculous that little expressions of ours tend to seep into the boys’ language–foul and otherwise–and that, in a frustrated moment the other day, TK said “fucking” and LB said “I can’t handle this” and honestly? I’m pretty sure there’s a time and a place for both so I’m not sweating it too much. Because I can’t handle it–the ups and downs, the crowds, the demands, the hormones, the emotions. I can’t handle, either, the joys, the love, the sunlight that pierced the windshield and nearly blinded me on our way to school this morning.

That mug that one of the boys brought home from the stall? Printed on it was another expression the boys commonly hear from me: “YOU ARE LOVED.” I can’t even handle it.

“My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself.” –CS Lewis

In his heartbreaking and life-giving memoir on grief, CS Lewis described it–grief, that is–as not a circle but a spiral. It may feel like you are revisiting the same spots over and over, but you are seeing them from a different vantage point each time. A point further along in the process, hopefully, which is progress, even though it may not seem to be.

This describes life, too, I think. It describes us.

Earlier this week, The Kid left his water bottle at his speech therapist’s office. We were a few blocks away, at Little Brother’s soccer practice, when we (I) realized this. Did I stop myself from rolling my eyes this time? No. Did I prevent the frustration from rising up within me like a volcano at this new multi-step problem thrown into our already-hectic afternoon? No, I did not.

But. I told him it was okay. And once LB was settled into practice, TK and I trotted over to the office to retrieve the bottle, and somehow we were both smiling.

(Then we got there, and his therapist–and the bottle–were shut in with another client, and we waited fifteen minutes before we had to leave to get back to LB so he wouldn’t notice we’d left, and TK and I both got lost in our own anxiety and definitely did not smile on our way back. So. Spirals.)

Last weekend I put on my heels and headed with a friend into the city, where we watched Hamilton. I’d seen it once more in person, on Broadway five years ago, back when I was a US resident and we were all allowed to travel around the world and theatre in America still existed. At the time, I was struggling through a stomach virus that was erupting from my rear and I had been reduced to simply hoping to get out of there without causing a scene, so my recollections beyond that are limited. But I do retain an overall feeling: of exhilaration at seeing the show with its (mostly) original cast, of watching this story come to life, of being a part of something bigger than myself, a part of our collective past and my own story.

This time, I (thankfully) was not encumbered by GI issues, just by a mandated mask that I pulled down to sip on beverages. This time, I sat next to a constant friend who didn’t exist to me a half-decade ago. This time, I watched this American story through the eyes of an Australian resident. I noticed that the audience missed the Sally Hemmings reference but not much else. That the cast was different but incredibly skilled. That the story was the same, but different. I was different.

I am different, and the same. I still fly off the handle, disappoint myself, get angry and irrational. But I also love more deeply, tell the truth more frequently, and ask for–and receive–forgiveness more readily. Spirals.

The only stories that remain static are the ones where we don’t tell the truth, where we skip the hard parts, where we elevate fear over love. I’ve just finished writing a middle-grade novel and in submitting it for publication, I’m finding that rejection (the one I’ve received so far, at least, though many more will come) hits the same, and different. I’m still offended, and I still battle shame, but now? I know something deeper than both. And that is the story where I live.

Yesterday morning I finally retrieved the water bottle. It was waiting in the car when the boys hopped in, these boys who have, through grace’s direction, shattered and remade me, who have lived the hard parts and told the truth with me. Who have lived and are living their own spirals–these stories where you can’t have bridges without barbed wire, or new life without grief, or an old cast without a new.

The Kid and Little Brother were baptised as babies. (This is because we believe in baptism not as a ticket into heaven/result of a personal decision but as the fulfilment of a promise; I’ll skip the unending controversy over this issue because I suspect a lack of interest among my readers.) TK’s sprinkling was delayed several weeks because, the night before that Sunday, he came down with a fever that led us to the emergency room and a penile catheter, among other disturbances. It wasn’t the first, or last, time he’s made us wait for something totally worth it.

LB’s baptism was on-schedule and uneventful other than the divine import of it all. For my part, I remember being baptised as a young teen, wearing a white robe (creepy) and stepping into a cold pool. I felt terror, along with the suspicion that this had not been sufficiently explained to me.

I experience those feelings still, often. Every day, probably. Which makes me wonder whether there aren’t thousands of tiny baptisms throughout our lives, separating the before from the after, the born from the reborn.

When TK was about two, we were at his speech therapist’s office waiting for her to collect him for their appointment, and he was running around the room smiling, and another mom asked me if he was autistic. This was pre-diagnosis. It was pre- a lot of things, and I told her–defensively, I imagine–that no, he was not. Now I am post- that particular defensiveness. I am post-giving a shit about a label and post-seeing it as an albatross around his (and my) neck. I am post-terrified (most days) about what other people think.

I’ve been washed in the water of things I thought could end me, and survived.

Fast forward about seven years, and add a supreme amount of self-awareness into TK’s repertoire, and you have the two of us at bedtime. He asks me why he was to repeat himself all the time when no one else does. He asks why speech has to be “his thing” and why his brother doesn’t seem to have a thing. He tells me he hates his speech.

My heart breaks, and then I remember what I learned from nearly-but-not drowning: that the people who ask him to repeat himself really care about what he has to say. That everyone has a thing, even if it hasn’t shown up yet. That I treasure all the moments his speech and its ensuing therapy visits have given us together that we wouldn’t have had otherwise.

He falls asleep somewhat at peace, somewhat unsettled still. Don’t we all.

A few days later, his school (years 2-6) has a cross-country event and don’t you know that he is not here for it. So I meet him there, along with a few other parents, though I turn out to be the only one who runs/walks alongside her kid–and the only one who is cheered for alongside her kid. I am still a member of The Society of I Didn’t Sign Up for This, but now that card sits in my wallet alongside the one for The Fellowship of All Out of Fucks, and when one of the dads monitoring the race (that we end in second-to-last place) jokingly asks if I need a coffee, I tell him I’d prefer a wine, and it turns out to be the best morning I’ve had in awhile.

On a family dog walk a few days later, a woman stops us and tells TK how great he did in the race. Turns out she’s the grandmother of one of the boys in his class. And as she praises him, I feel LB tug on my arm. “Introduce me,” he stage-whispers, so I do, and he follows up with how many goals he scored at soccer last week–a number he tripled at practice a few days later–and I am washed in the water, overcome by the waves, of two people who need to be seen in their own ways, on their own terms. The differences can be minimal, or stark, but they are always beautiful.

Because while LB scored those goals, his big brother asked one of the dads of the kids on the team why he had such a nice suit and haircut that made him look like a millionaire. He was basically running an improv show on the sideline, which is usually LB’s thing, but he was busy soccer rocker-ing. And I’m standing on the sideline, my view split between two boys, a little unsettled and a little at peace, exhausted and buffeted by the waves that keep somehow both knocking us down and lifting us up.

Derek Chauvin was just found guilty on all counts for George Floyd’s murder. I can remember a time, not long enough ago, when I would’ve interpreted this as a miscarriage of justice. Now I see it as anything but.

I am not who I used to be, though I will always be me. Does this make sense? Somehow, yes: we can travel the world and arrive where we started, which is to say, home, even if home is in a different place. We can be changed by the journey while still being who we were. I like to think of it (and complain to The Husband about it) as what happens to women who become mothers: we change physically, mentally, chemically, neurologically, hormonally, emotionally, though there are things about us (often reflected back by our children, and our marriages) that never do a full 180. Or anywhere close to a 180.

I started in Alabama. I’m now in Australia. I was single; I am no longer. I was childless and now am not. I was on one side of the political spectrum and now I’ve migrated positions. There are causes that I care about now that were once never on my radar; differences I didn’t knew existed that I now hope to champion. So much has changed.

The other day, a friend asked how my faith was going. It irritated me; then again, I’m easily irritated. But after I gave it some thought, I understood why I was irritated: because what ultimately matters is not how my faith is going (it’s forever intact yet all over the place on any given day, thanks), but the state of the One in whom my faith rests. And that One never changes.

Bear with me as I mention a niche but growing category called Exvangelicals, who have left the faith of their youth (American Evangelicalism/fundamentalism) in favour of no faith at all, or a very different one. I’d consider myself in the latter camp, as over the years I’ve come to see what I was taught as little more than Self-Improvement and Behaviour-Management dressed in church clothes, and I need so much more than what I can buy from Amazon’s “inspirational” section to cure what ails me. These people discuss “deconstructing” their faith, and I am here for it. Mainly because I’m no longer afraid of deconstruction, of closer examination, of confrontation and tension.

It’s why I teach ethics at the boys’ school now, whereas they were enrolled in Scripture: I like the curriculum of critical thinking ethics provides, and I know they’ll hear plenty about Jesus from me. It’s why we can accept a church here (and skip some weeks) even though I long for the more grace-driven preaching back in Atlanta and New York; grace will always find us. It’s why I can face the racism I used to practice; I know that there is such a thing as redemption and healing, though it often lies on the other side of hard realities.

This is what freedom often looks like: a process of deconstruction, which is really just a part of reconstruction, or even resurrection. The same, but so different. The way to becoming the truest versions of ourselves: who we were made to be.

I remember thinking, as a child, that nothing ever happened to me.

I begged for glasses a year before I got them, leaving the ophthalmologist’s office that first year without them in tears. In sixth grade, I tripped over a crevice in the dirt and when I hoped for a dramatic diagnosis of, short of an actual break, then some sort of serious sprain, I was informed, instead, that this was a strain (not a ligamental tear, but a stretch) and left without the crutches I’d longed to bring to school that would undoubtedly elicit questions and sympathy.

My family–what I knew of it, at least–remained largely untouched by death until the loss of my great-aunt when I was in high school (and our beloved dog around the same time).

Most people would call such an existence blessed. I called it boring.

So I got used to a life that remained decidedly on the tracks. Until it didn’t, and all hell broke loose, and I wanted the predictable life I’d once rued.

Yes, there was a time when my imagination didn’t stretch beyond Alabama. Thank God that grace’s did.

Derailments to my plans sent me to New York, then Atlanta (I swore I’d never live there–#traffic), then Australia. I’ve set up camp in Marriage, and Motherhood, and the Autism Spectrum, and Depression and Anxiety. I’ve relocated from one political party to sort of another, from American Evangelicalism to Anything But. I’ve nearly drowned trying to swim in an ocean I’d never dreamed of seeing. I’ve fallen as many (more) times as I’ve risen and I’ve crawled as much as I’ve run.

I’ve wiped a few asses many times and cleaned up a lot of dog vomit.

And now, as the sun sets, I’m writing this outside a hotel room on Australia’s Gold Coast (which is like America’s Gulf Shores, so…amazing). The Husband and Little Brother are playing soccer on one side of me and The Kid is setting up an airport on the table on the other. I’m drinking some kind of spritz and I’m five pounds (a couple of kilos) heavier than I’d like to be and a mosquito just bit the shit out of my arm.

Nothing is happening. Everything is.

This morning, TK wanted to return to the familiarity of the hotel room after an express breakfast, but instead the cashier at our cafe offered us bread to feed the ducks. The ducks didn’t show, but the seagulls did. I told him, on the way back to the hotel, that if we hadn’t stretched to allow the unplanned, we would have missed that.

It’s a lesson I keep repeating, and learning, and living.

I hope nothing keeps happening.

“Not knowing is a good place to start.” –Fredrik Bakman, Anxious People

It would seem as though I learn the most when I do the least.

I am not in love with hustle culture, with toxic “to-do” lists, with busyness as a badge of honour. This is partly because I’m a homebody and an introvert but also? Because I know that shit doesn’t work.

I know that goal-orientation as a lifestyle has an expiration date, and usually ends in one form or another of drowning: drowning in anxiety, drowning in frustration, drowning in your own and/or others’ ineptitude; just hitting a wall and flailing your way to submersion.

The drowning is either the end or the beginning.

I’ve been in fear of drowning twice in my life: once in a river in Alabama, and more recently (and beautifully) in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Manly. In both instances, I was flailing and fighting before I realised I couldn’t save myself. In Alabama, the river carried me to shore. In Manly, it was the hand of a friend. This past weekend, I attempted that same swim with the same friend. This time, the water was calmer–and so was I. Instead of tackling the waves, I rode them. I floated more. I did less. And I made it there–and back. And afterward, I had champagne.

This time, the water was calmer, yes, but it was also murkier due to recent rainstorms. But I had more time to look. I saw a stingray and massive fish, along with schools of tiny ones. There’s more time to enjoy the view when you’re not fighting to maintain it.

I think stillness is a secret we’re still not letting ourselves in on.

The day after my swim, while Little Brother shot for nothing but net at a basketball camp, The Kid and I went to the local water park and slid for an hour. He wanted to go on the fast one, so I told him to go for it, then he made it clear that he meant not solo, so I sat behind him on the mat and pushed us off, and for about twenty seconds–ten times in a row–we screamed and laughed our way through a blue flume, speeding around its curves and splashing into the pool at the end.

His delight was pure. So was mine. There was nothing we could control once we pushed off, and the freedom was terrifying and exhilarating.

I’ve seen the video. I was disgusted, but not surprised. This sort of eruption is a natural result of an identity built on the sinking sand of personal achievement, hustle culture, toxic busyness, and “drink more water”-type philosophies that avoid the danger of deeper water for the shallow safety of the shoreline. You don’t value life more by mastering it (as if that’s possible), but by failing and flailing and, repeatedly, being saved by a grace bigger than yourself.

People who have seen crazy things can believe crazy things. People who have stopped trying to maintain beauty are the ones who can truly behold it. There was a time, for example, when a bunch of women told a bunch of men a story, and (typically) the men didn’t believe the women because their tale sounded like nonsense. Well, almost all the men didn’t believe. One did–the one who had briefly tiptoed across water; the one who had disappointed himself by doing a thing he’d never thought himself capable of. People who have sunk to depths they never knew existed? They’re the ones with the best views, the best stories.

The wall-hittings, and the drownings–these are invitations. Invitations to deeper water, where toes can’t touch bottom but grace can–and it holds.

One of my children is a human lie detector who is incapable of lying himself, and he’s teaching his younger brother all his tricks.

Life on the spectrum often brings with it a complete lack of deceit. I won’t say that The Kid has never uttered a falsehood, but I will say that when he has, he has immediately followed it up with an admission of truth. And he demands that level of truth from others: when the kids ask what we’re having for dinner and I tell them “platefuls of broccoli,” he immediately tells me that’s not true; when I say I’ll be “just a second” he corrects me, shouting, “Don’t say that! It’s always MORE THAN A SECOND!” And since I’ve taught him and Little Brother sarcasm, one of their favourite phrases is “thank you” in a sickly sweet tone. TK likes to follow it up with, “That was sarcasm.”

LB is slightly more adept at maintaining a mask than TK, but it falls too. When I ask him if he snuck a chocolate egg from the silver pitcher on the counter, he’ll shake his head momentarily before a grin starts pulling at the corners of his mouth and his signature right-cheek dimple–the one that showed up in the 3D ultrasound–appears. But TK, his face–and the rest of him–is an open book. There simply is no falseness there.

If you want to know how you truly look today, ask him–but be prepared not to love the answer. If you ask him how his day was when it was not good, don’t expect a “fine.” This kind of honesty can be brutal, and it has led to some blow-out fights over toenail clipping that I’d just as soon forget because I’m still apologising for them. But I’m starting to see the beauty of it, the freedom in its wake.

When I first got to Sydney and had a short-lived relationship with a therapist here, she commented that I didn’t look depressed; I was wearing makeup and regular clothes. I wanted to scream at her that I’d rather not look like an elderly gentleman when I take my kids to school. I’ve also heard “but you make jokes all the time” in response to admissions of my struggles, and I want to reply that anxiety doesn’t mean I don’t have a bitchin’ sense of humour. But these things, these efforts, are forms of masks (the only kind that some Americans like to wear, apparently). They are ways we protect ourselves from revealing too much of ourselves, to opening ourselves to scrutiny and judgment.

One of my friends recently wrote (in a book I contributed to, NBD) about how many of us are living like crabs in stock pots:

“Your day-to-day life is one of the slyest ways to lose sight of what matters. You do not need a family crisis to increase the temperature of your stock pot; you can do that all on your own. All you need is a free weekend and a to-do list. It feels good to cross each item out, to take care of business. But the thrill of your own competence easily becomes addictive and, as an over functioning crustacean, you lose your feeling for the waters you were meant for. Life in the boiling pot becomes the only life you know.”

I’ve thought about this a lot lately, about how the masks we wear are similar to the pots we can get stuck in; how we were meant for more freedom, for people who can handle our truths and for waters that are open. How constricted we can be by our own fears of what others think; how we often construct our own narratives or or need to cling to fairy tales/monarchies to feel better about how things are. Just clambering around in those pots while the mighty, unpredictable ocean waits.

“Can you imagine ever going back?” some friends asked us over dinner last weekend, and while they were talking about America, I think of it in other terms too. Can I imagine going back to who I was before New York, before motherhood, before autism, before Sydney? No, I cannot. Thank God. There is brutality here, and beauty. There is sorrow, and bliss. There are riptides, and there are cradling waves. Out here is the ocean. It is sacred, and true.

I was speaking to some friends recently about post-Covid anxiety. How this return to “normal” life (which, apparently in America, includes a return to mass shootings; don’t even get me started) brings with it all the unprocessed baggage from lockdowns and quarantines and social distancing. I confessed my own hesitation to jump back into the busyness–and business–of regular life, of cluttered diaries (that’s “calendars” in Australian) and packed schedules.

One of my friends leaned forward and looked me in the eye. “I’m not trying to problem-solve here,” she said, “but trust that you are not alone.”

It helped, this acknowledgement, this recognition. And I’ve suspected as much is true, as I’ve commiserated with people over the fact that theatre tickets now require us to sit right next to strangers once again; that we’ve entered the phase of reentry wherein we feel a nostalgia for those quiet hours spent trapped inside our own homes (but not for homeschool. Never for homeschool).

True to the principles of reentry, birthday parties have once again joined the group chat, and last weekend was The Kid’s turn. The party had been rescheduled from the day before, meant as it had been to take place outside and there were torrential downpours, but the next day’s weather wasn’t much better so we headed inside his friend’s apartment for the festivities.

On the way up the stairs, TK came to a halt beside me. “No,” he said. “I’m not going. Let’s go home.” No stranger to picking battles or to having social anxiety, I explained to him that I knew it was hard but that we had said we would be there, so we were going. And that I would (sigh) stay the whole time.

We went. And I sat on the couch like a creeper while he navigated his way through games (to which he RSVPed no), dancing (same), and photos (he actually gave in for that). He asked the parents why they had such a small apartment and how much the rent cost, and I tried to steer us away from those topics which I had clearly said in the car on the way over were off-limits. I was at turns mortified, sad, and frustrated. But also? I was wonderfully overwhelmed.

He is only ever himself, and those who know him know that, and accept him as he is. When I texted the mom a thank you (for the party and letting me crash it), she texted back that her daughter loves James and couldn’t imagine having a party without him. (Did I mention he was the only boy there?) These moments, they bring the tears but they also bring so much beauty that never would have happened without them. So many people who turn out to be Our People, more deeply so than any typical birthday experience would have revealed.

We did a role-playing game later called “Things We Can Say and Things We Should Just Think, or Say Only at Home” and after giving examples like “your house is lovely” or “why does your house smell so bad?”, Little Brother wanted to provide his own: “Why is your house a fucking house?” And this is how stories are born.

This afternoon, TK will get the highest award his school offers, a banner, and he told me last night that he’s a bit nervous. Then he grabbed a toy plane and called it the Feelings Plane and talked about how it was flying into nervous territory and I rejoiced in a victory, in this articulation of feelings that I didn’t master until, like, last year but that he is all over at age nine.

The sun came out today for the first time in over a week, and while the rest of us marvel at our improved moods, there are those around the state who have lost homes and livestock and so much. There is rejoicing and grieving. There is loss and gain. There is mortification and beauty. And as we sit in the school hall this afternoon watching TK stand proudly and nervously in front of his peers, I will remember that it all counts.