Earlier this afternoon, after completing a therapy session with Tony, I dropped Hannah and her boyfriend off at Guitar Center, and then drove myself across the street to treasure a rare moment. A moment where I got to enter a store with me in mind and all by myself, no pressure to focus on therapy tasks or to rush for any reason other than when I agreed to pick Hannah up.
As I was paying for a handful of small polished crystals and some incense, the store owner of Centric Crystals and I had a brief conversation. Both of us parent kiddos on the spectrum. I could feel the warmth and encouragement in what she said as she spoke of the moment she recognized within herself that no matter how hard she had it, she felt that her child certainly had things harder.
In the moment, I just listened and thanked her for her words, because I could feel the genuine warmth radiating off of her and the kindness of her intent. I think if I had more time to frame an additional response, I might have led in with words I recently read from a book by Dr. Becky Kennedy: “two things are true.”
“Two things are true.”
My Autistic children have journeys that are difficult in ways I can’t completely understand, and I can readily acknowledge that I have some things that have been much easier for me personally in my life. My journey has had different challenges though. “Two things are true” here: I can feel like stress is ravening and rampaging its way through my life as I do everything I can to meet the needs of certain moments before me, and they can feel the heavy weight of their own challenges and how difficult lifting them can make any moment of life seem.
But a third thing is also true. We love each other fiercely, and that is enough to banish the shadow of many difficult things.
This thoughtful store owner encouraged me to always make sure I can take time for myself. That is somewhat hard to do, but I am trying as I am able. Always something must go undone to make it happen though…therapy or cleaning, for example. But that’s what those quiet moments in the store were for me- self care. But perhaps the thing that was most special in those moments was that someone reached out to share a bit of their light and peace. I hope someone shares a bit of those with each of you sometime soon also.
Much love <3 Ari
