Three or four years ago, I had a falling out with a close friend. A discussion ultimately ended in her giving me an ultimatum, one that I didn’t acquiesce to. After some time had passed and I realized how much I missed her, I reached out… and was basically told to go f**k myself. We haven’t spoken since.

Two years ago, I was deeply – and inadvertently – hurt by another friend. Though conversations followed, I never received the apology I felt like I needed. Things have been different between us ever since.

Last year, one of Tegan’s (12 years old at the time) friends suddenly told her, “I hate you and never want to see you again.” When I tried to talk to his mother (someone who I also considered a friend) about it to see if I could learn what was going on, she responded by promptly blocking me. We haven’t talked since, and to this day neither Tegan nor I know what we did wrong.

Last week, some random person attacked me in one of my bipolar Facebook groups. She didn’t like what I had to say, and she reacted. She wasn’t kind, and she wasn’t gracious. She was condescending and arrogant, and her comments stung.

What do all these people have in common?

They’re the weather.

I can’t control the weather.

The weather does what it wants.

The weather makes its own decisions.

The weather is not about me.

Unless I’m putting myself in the eye of a hurricane, the weather doesn’t even affect me.

My whole life, I’ve cared too much what other people think and do. I get my feelings hurt easily, I’m quick to react, I’m sensitive to a fault. Many people have tried to talk to me about this – including my therapist of two years – but while I could understand intellectually, I didn’t know how to stop it. Nothing really made it click for me until recently when I heard the weather analogy. It was a literal lightbulb moment for me, and made me go, “Oh. OHHHH!!”

They’re the weather.

All of us as humans, as long as we’re living with appropriate boundaries, are walking around with an invisible circle around us. We have the right, the responsibility, and the authority to control everything inside our circles. Everything and everyone outside the circle? It’s the weather, and out of our control.

And it takes practice. When I got the comment on Facebook, a comment that would have ordinarily completely derailed me for a week, I had to remind myself: She’s the weather. I’m not in charge. She can say what she wants, do what she wants, act how she wants. It’s not about me. That’s HER choice. HER circle. HER responsibility. If she wants to be rude to strangers on the internet, she’s free to do that. My job? Simply to decide how I will or will not react. I get to decide if I’m going to let it send me spiraling, or if I’m going to let it go. Strangers on the internet? The answer is always to let it go.

Game changer.

As for friends, and other closer relationships? It’s more complicated, right? There are real feelings involved. There’s history. It’s personal. But the same principle applies. All I can control is me. That’s it. Was I true to myself? Was I honest? Was I kind? Was I fair? If the answer to any of the above is no, that’s on me to fix. But if the answer is yes, well then I did what I could.

The rest is weather. I can get an umbrella if I need it, but I don’t have to get wet.

I used to get really jazzed about New Years. I was allured with the whole idea of clean slates and fresh starts, and I couldn’t wait to start writing in my crisp new planner – Okay, that part hasn’t changed. I’m very excited about my 2021 bullet journal – But somewhere along the way I either got more realistic or more jaded, because it’s just another day on the calendar to me now. I don’t do resolutions, I don’t make vision boards, I don’t come up with a “word of the year” (that’s one I’ve noticed is really popular lately). I don’t begrudge anyone who does do those things; it’s just not for me. If I want to make a change or try something new, I just do it, regardless of the date on the calendar. A little over a week ago, Tegan and I decided to start Couch to 5K again. There were a few reasons, but it was mainly because we’re signed up to do a mud run this spring (Covid permitting), and it will be more fun if we have more endurance. We could have waited until the new year, but we started on December 20th. Voila. No New Years resolutions about exercise.

There are a few popular things though that even I did make resolutions would absolutely not make the list. Here are three things I won’t be doing for 2021, in no particular order:

Trying to lose weight – I have a long, complicated history with my weight. From dealing with disordered eating starting in my teens and lasting well into adulthood, to being underweight, to being overweight. Three years ago, I was put on a new medication that made me swiftly put on 40 pounds, and a year ago I was put on another one that made me swiftly lose 30. Could I still lose weight according to those outdated charts? Yes. Would I be mad if I lost it? No. Am I actively going to try to lose it? Also no. One of the lessons I’ve had to learn in the past few years – and it was a hard fought lesson – was radical body acceptance, no matter my weight. The diet industry wants us to believe that we have to be thin in order to be acceptable, but 1) thin is not synonymous with healthy, and 2) beauty comes in all sizes. My body carried, birthed, and breastfed four humans. It’s climbed mountains and swam in the ocean and rode horses and played soccer and ran a 5K. My body is amazing! The number on the scale? That’s just a number. DISCLAIMER: I’m not suggesting I’m not going to take care of my body. On the contrary, I’m excited about having more movement in my life, and am looking forward to doing the run with Tegan. I like playing hard, eating nourishing foods (see item 2), and getting good sleep. There is no end goal, because health is a constantly moving and evolving thing, but if there was? It would be strength. It would be confidence. It would be endurance. Not whether or not I fit into size 6 jeans.

Trying to eat healthier – I’m going to pick on the diet industry again, but the word “healthy” is such a loaded word. What does it even mean? What’s healthy for one person could literally kill another. We have preferences and intolerances and allergies. What makes me feel light and energized might make you feel sluggish and weighed down. I’ve written about this before, but now more than ever, the moralizing of food is out of control. Hate and war are bad. A potato chip is just a potato chip. I’ve had the same food philosophy for a long time now, and it hasn’t served me wrong. I eat when I’m hungry and stop when I’m full. I make no food off-limits. I eat a variety of foods, and I eat foods that nourish me in mind, body, and soul (Nourishment, by the way, can come in the form of a salad or in a gooey chocolate chip cookie). I don’t look at food as good or bad but simply as choices. I listen to my body, I pay attention to how things make me feel, and I don’t berate myself for having a piece of cake. Sometimes needs are best met with an egg, and sometimes they’re best met with a handful of Skittles. They’re just choices. And if I happen to make a choice that disagrees? My body lets me know by getting cranky – in a variety of ways…. bodies are useful like that – and I make a different choice next time. Simple, and certainly not something to count, weigh, measure, or stress out over.

Trying to be happier – Off the bat, this sounds like an odd one (why would I not want to be happier??), but hear me out. First, for people with mental illness, you cannot just choose to be happy. You just can’t. They’re called mood disorders for a reason. Trying to just decide to be happy when you have a mood disorder is a lesson in frustration and futility. Meds, food, rest, and exercise can all help of course, but there’s no magic bullet. Beyond that though, much like with the black and white thinking of the diet industry, there is a black and white push for toxic positivity that tells us that we MUST be happy. But it’s not realistic. We were given a wide range of human emotions, and they’re all valid. Every one of them. I don’t want to try so hard to be happy that I deprive myself of the growth that comes from sadness, or the resilience that comes from heartbreak, or the resolve that comes from anger. Our emotions teach us things, lessons that we’ll never learn if we squash them down in an effort to be happy all the time. My caveat is this: I do believe in gratitude. I do believe in self care. I do believe in service to others. I do believe in love. I believe in looking for rainbows and ice cream with sprinkles and bubble baths after a long day. All of those things, when done well, will naturally lead to more happiness. Happiness is the fortunate byproduct, not the destination. Because don’t get me wrong, I want to be happy…. I just know it won’t always be the case. And that’s okay.

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So what then WOULD make my list, if I were to make one? Right now, it’d simply be this: To be me. To live loud, to work and play hard, to make mistakes, and to learn from them. And to know, in my heart of hearts, that that’s enough.

This morning on Facebook, I was called ableist, elitist, classist, and racist. In the interest of “When you know better, you do better,” I deleted the post that had prompted it, but I can’t stop thinking about it. It spoke to a larger issue that’s been on my mind the past couple of weeks, and helped some loose edges of a thought fall into place.

A week or two ago, I read a post about kids and water. The mom was encouraging other mothers to get their kids to drink water (as opposed to drinks such as juice and/or soda) and said that it was easy if you just led by example. Her kids, she said, have never had anything but water, and it was all because it’s what they’d been exposed to. Fair enough, I guess, but the way the post was worded felt steeped in judgement. I am not at all proud that that was my first thought. Because my very NEXT thought was, “Is this how I’ve come across for the past 15 years?” The thought was swift, and real, and visceral, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that I stopped just short of pulling down my blog altogether.

Judgmental is a complaint I’ve gotten a lot, along with sanctimonious, self-righteous, and holier-than-thou. I’ve worked hard at learning to share my own truth, and letting other people’s opinions of my words be just that: their opinions. But the thought is there now, and I can’t let it go:

What if they’re right?

What if I have been judgmental? What if my words have been unkind, unwarranted, or ungracious? Last year someone said that I wrote as if I thought I was better than everyone else. It wasn’t the first time someone had said that (and, if I continue to write, likely won’t be the last), but for some reason this time it cut extra deep. And when I had to see that person and smile and act normal and make conversation at our conference? It was one of the hardest face-to-face interactions I’ve ever had. It hurt.

I didn’t ever want to be afraid to voice opinions, but this year I’ve become afraid. I’ve deactivated my Facebook more times than I count because I’ve gotten my feelings hurt, because I haven’t been able to handle the backlash, because I just get so tired of saying the wrong thing. And some of it is just people looking to start conflict to be sure. Some of it is just people being, well, jerks. But…

What if they’re right?

As we close out this dumpster fire of a year, I’m finding myself questioning everything. I feel genuine remorse for the times I’ve missed the mark, for the times I have been judgmental, or arrogant, or elitist, or ableist. It was never my intention.

So what does this mean moving forward? Where do I go from here? What do I do with my writing? Do I hang up my hat? I don’t know. I really don’t. I’m discouraged, and I’m tired.

I have no neat and tidy way to wrap up this post. It was a brain dump in its purest form. And I don’t know if it’s because it’s the end of a hard year, or because I still have some seasonal depression going on, or because I once again got my feelings hurt on the internet, but damn. I am feeling all the feelings. And I am sad.

If you’re still reading, I’m sending peace, love, and best wishes for a calmer, healthier 2021.

This is Spencer. Spencer has a huge heart, a goofy sense of humor, a knack for solving problems, and a love of interesting facts.

Spencer also has autism.

Spencer has always had autism. But up until yesterday, there’s never been an official diagnosis, never been a piece of paper stating those words. And now there is.

One might wonder, if we knew all this time (and to be clear, we all, including Spencer, knew) why we’d wait until he was 23 to pursue a diagnosis. It’s a fair question. And the answer is complicated.

For one thing, it didn’t feel necessary to have a formal diagnosis. Having the diagnosis wouldn’t have changed how we treated him, wouldn’t have changed how we parented, wouldn’t have changed the decisions we made about school. Wouldn’t have changed who he was as a person. He was, is, and will always be Spencer.

Beyond that though, was the fear of starting to view him through the lens of a label. I saw too many people viewing their atypical kids through that lens, to the point that they were no longer people who had a diagnosis, but actually WERE that diagnosis. I didn’t want to be a parent who referred to her child as “my autistic son” or “my aspie daughter” when that information was irrelevant to the conversation at hand.

I learned a few things as time went on though. Having a label, official or otherwise, was not mine to claim. It was Spencer’s. It was his right to decide what he did and did not want to embrace and accept and share. It was his right to decide what importance he placed on the label, and what its presence meant to his identity.

I also learned that denying him the formal diagnosis would mean I was denying him services, support, and information that would be not only helpful but potentially life-changing. Especially as an adult, opening this door means he’s eligible for SSI and support and services such as job coaching and life skills training.

So now he has the diagnosis. And while we were all expecting it, it still kicked the wind out of me. It just felt real and official and BIG, along with its accompaniment of a host of new appointments and evaluations and hoops. So many hoops. (More hoops than there would have been if we’d done it when he was younger.)

While I’m resigned and optimistic, I’m also a little bit overwhelmed. Not because of the autism, but because of what it’s going to entail.

But Spencer? He’s the same as he was yesterday. Same as he was the day before. Having a diagnosis doesn’t change him from the unique and complicated and perfectly imperfect person he’s always been. He will deal with the next steps with the same formidable determination he’s dealt with everything else. He will rise to the challenges with strength and dignity and a sense of humor because that’s who he is.

For his part, he is glad to have the diagnosis, so I am following his lead on this. There will be bumps and missteps and headaches as we get the next steps sorted, but we’ll be okay.

And at the end of the day (day, week, month, year) he’ll still be perfectly Spencer.