This Isn't What I Planned

I’m a type A planner and organizer—a girlfriend once told me I was Type A++—and I’ve always had a plan for what I wanted to do even though it hasn’t always worked out as anticipated. At an early age I decided I wanted to be a teacher, probably because I enjoyed school so much, and I became a teacher. From the time I first thought of having my own children, I knew I would stay home with them until they were all in school full-time, and back when I was in the classroom I thought my teaching career would sync perfectly with the family since we would be roughly on the same schedules. I decided to be a teacher when I was a young girl and thought I would be a teacher forever.

My career focus changed 12 years ago when I transitioned into training and instructional design, and feel like I really found my calling in designing learning materials. But we also began having children in my mid 30s, right about the time when I wanted to be working hard on my career. Fortunately my then employer had flexible work opportunities and I was able to work from home for three years. After that I did some other work and have pursued other instructional design opportunities with flexible work options, but in the last few years our lives have changed dramatically and I find myself shifting towards yet another path, one I never planned or prepared for.

October is the two year anniversary of receiving an autism spectrum diagnosis for our oldest son, who is now 6. Ever since we got the autism diagnosis and have recently added an ADD diagnosis to the family mix, I have immersed myself in the literature on autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and ADD/ADHD, adding to my stack of books regularly and carrying one or two with me every where I go. I read about families dealing with autism spectrum disorders and ADD/ADHD who said one parent gave up their job to deal with all the work it entails, but somehow I thought it wouldn’t be quite like that for us. Our ASD son is high-functioning and with help is able to do well in a mainstream classroom. Our ADD son also functions pretty well with some assistance, though we find he needs academic assistance where our other son does not. I spend quite a bit of time preparing support materials in the form of stories to help them learn about social behaviors, what is expected of them at school, and simple checklists for things like personal hygiene and home routines.

Sometimes the learning materials have an immediate, visible, and positive impact, but other times the boys respond slowly and we have to remind ourselves of the need for patience. It’s a full-time job, and it impacts the whole family in ways we did not expect.

My husband and I have now accepted that we won’t hire sitters so we can go out on dates. As a mother with education experience, I find it tough dealing with all the variables of three young boys and the special needs, and some days the volcanoes erupt and we have to retreat to bring some peace back into the house, so I can’t imagine asking a teenager to be in charge of my three dormant volcanoes. So I’ve become an unwilling homebody, going out with other women infrequently, and sometimes feel like I’ve lost my sense of how to behave in a social context. I work very hard to keep our home life stable for our boys even though my husband travels with his job, because they need the security and stability to help them get through their daily routines. But it’s hard and some days I cry.

There’s some fear involved, I admit. I don’t want to give up myself, I want to have something for me, something that allows me to express my creativity, something outside the day-to-day managing of the house and teaching our children. I need an outlet for all these ideas pent up inside my head, but each time I think I can give myself permission and time to be creative and express those ideas, something happens that drags me back. Some days it’s so hard to see through the fog of all this stuff I’m trying to learn about developmental and learning disabilities and keep it straight. One child needs this, another needs that, and the other seems to be fine now, but what if?

The school year got off to a tough start and I barely made it through September with my sanity intact. After a much-needed and fabulous weekend at the BlogHer Food Conference in San Francisco (a rare opportunity for me to go off for a weekend and just have fun with good friends and make new ones) it only took 24 hours after coming home to realize that life as I’ve tried to make it with ASD and ADD is not working. I had to get out of the situation and come back to see it in a different light.

What do I keep and what has to go? I have come to a crossroads where I must decided what to do with my time, what is important and what can be let go, but I don’t want to let go. My blog is my creative outlet, and though it requires some work, I will not give it up. I feel like a petulant child, stamping my feet because someone wants to take away my favorite toy. Working on my blog challenges my brain every day, whether through writing, cooking, photography, the technical work. But other things I enjoy will have to go, even freelance work I’ve taken over the last few years, and it hurts to have to make those decisions because I enjoy the work as well as the knowledge that some part of me is still independent and capable of taking care of myself.

I’ve slowly come to the realization that I may never return to work in the same way before the boys, before the autism, before the ADD. It’s going to be different from anything I planned. I’m not yet okay with that, but at some point I will accept it.

Original DC Metro Moms Blog post.

Andrea Meyers writes about cooking, edible gardening, and her four hungry guys.