Five hundred twenty-five thousand
six hundred minutes

How do you measure – measure a year?

Yesterday on Everybody’s Boy I waxed philosophical about not needing to be any more than I am, shunning resolutions, and appreciating unanswered prayers. Then this morning I made the mistake of reading it.

I should explain.  I am not the kind of writer who writes, rewrites, edits (snort), and ponders.  I mean, I can be that kind of writer, but here – this is my space – so I do it my way.  I write from the heart.  I write unabashedly.  I post impulsively.  I hardly ever read my own words.

Something didn’t sit right last night and I couldn’t put my finger on it.  I had fitful dreams.  I woke up feeling like I wasn’t sure where I was and what I did last night and searching for clues.  Of course, I was here, I was sober…oh so sober…and I wrote.

So I read last night’s blog. “Unanswered prayers, I thought.  Isn’t that a Garth Brooks record? This post is not me. Eww, it’s fake diplomat Debby.  It’s me pontificating on a lesson that I haven’t even begun to learn, a lesson, that I am not sure even I want to learn.”  

I immediately deemed it crap.  Not because it’s not right, but because it’s not me. That post should have gone in the drafts folder to die, it still could in fact, but I’m leaving it because that’s the point.  I’m human.  Sometimes I write total crap. Whoops. The good? news is that only 49 of you read it. (Not cool guys, not cool, we’ll talk about that later.)

Imma fix this right now, though. 

See here’s the thing:  as a writer, the only thing I can give to you is the truth.  The truth as I see it, as I live it.  It’s my truth.  Your interpretation of it is your truth.

I lied to us yesterday.

I do want to make resolutions.  I do want 2013 to kick 2012′s ass.  I do want to see my collar bones again.  I want to be published (Please!).  I want to hold a passport again and use it.  I want to stop writing in the passive voice and being to lazy to edit it…

I want to be thin and pretty and successful and interesting.  I want to keep a clean house and be appreciated as a professional for my work.  I want to be Mommy and I want to be something beyond, in complement to, other than in addition to Mommy.

I want 2013 to bring me closer to each one of these goals.  That’s the truth.  Yeah, I want to appreciate what I’ve got and the “unanswered prayers” and “serendipity” and whatever.  But I would by lying to leave my post stand as it were.  I would be lying to say that I don’t have dreams and hopes and  resolutions  - because if I am not moving forward, if I am not growing – I am not me.

I am grateful for all that I have and I want more.

I can say that unapologetically.

Bring it, 2013.  

I’m gonna dust off that memoir and find those collar bones again.

Every New Year’s Eve as a child, just before midnight I would rush to my bedroom to write on the door “Farewell 1992″ or “Debby was here 12/31/87 11:57 p.m.”

It was a symbolic acknowledgement of the end and the beginning.  It was a proper burial for the past.  I believed that novelty would bring me the solace I needed to forget my past, accept my present, and create my future.

I wonder what I thought would happen if I missed that moment?

We’ve talked about what a superstitious geek I am about these things before.

I guess some part of me wants to believe that if I can mark the passing of 2012 appropriately, pay it the homage it deserves, then I can collect the bountiful blessings that await in 2013.

It’s just that logically I know that resolutions don’t last.  I know that January 1st isn’t magically different or better (or worse) than December 31st.

Still every year I say farewell to the old year, and wish for the next to be “better”.  Does that mean that every single year has been bad?  Or does that mean that my expectations are clearly out of whack?

I truly don’t know.  So much happens in our life (in everyone’s life) that I find it daunting to think of revisiting, reevaluating, and rehashing the past 12 months. If I didn’t process and compartmentalize in the moment and move on, I’d be stuck in February.

I admit, there is still a part of me that is intrigued by the prospect of new and shiny.  I believe that things can always get better, that we can always grow and change and do more.   I’m not so jaded to not be hopeful that 2013 will bring health and love and maybe a pair of size 6 jeans.  But I guess I’m also learning to be grateful for the gifts that 2012 brought – the ones I didn’t go looking for, the ones that I didn’t know were important until they came – and to focus on them and not the challenges.

Maybe I’ll make 2013 the year of noticing and appreciating unanswered prayers, or serendipitous happenings, and live a bit more in the what is and not in the what ifs.

Or maybe the journey is a lot fuzzier than all of that.

But just in case:  Debby was here 12/28/12 9:27 p.m EST, Farewell 2012

It’s not that I have nothing to say about what happened last Friday in Newtown, CT.

…It’s that I’m processing this like every other parent.  A parent of a first grader.  A parent of a child who also happens to have Autism.  A parent who despises that guns exist but who knows that doesn’t matter because they already do.  A parent, a Mommy, who cannot make a coherent argument about how to solve gun violence in America.

A parent, a citizen, who is exasperated that mental health resources are so scarce and so taboo. A parent who wishes Adam Lanza had the proper support, medication, counseling, whatever he needed so that this act wouldn’t never happened.  A parent who wishes innocent children and adults were not killed, and a parent who wishes Adam Lanza didn’t have to die either.

Adam Lanza was sick and clearly needed help.  Whether he had Autism or not is irrelevant to why this happened.  Autism did not cause this.  Autism doesn’t cause people to commit premeditative mass murder.  There is no link.  None whatsoever.

Autism is not a mental illness.  It is a developmental disability.

Here’s the thing, friends. I’ve had to pull back lately from social media, from the news, from debate, from the ever encompassing world of Autism.

Because it consumed me.  It began to destroy me.  It began to eat away at my relationships, my mental health, my marriage.

Most of all, living in Autism, destroyed the way I viewed with my son.

His name is Peter.  My son’s name is Peter.  He is Everybody’s Boy, but he is also mine and ours.  He has Autism.  He has brown eyes and curly hair.  He wants to be a “video game maker” when he grows up.

He is more than his Autism.  He is more than an IEP and a behavioral plan.  He is more than a Medicaid Waiver slot.

There are no limits to what he can do.  I will not let Autism tell me I can’t, we can’t, he can’t.

I won’t stop fighting.  I won’t stop sharing.

But I will no longer allow Autism to consume us.