Cleaning Out

 Damn, we did save everything. 

I'm attending to the backlog of stuff that needs to get seen to, one way or another. Happened upon a box of preschool art (among other things) for both boys.

Anything clearly not done by either kid got tossed out of hand.

And there was a pretty fair amount of that. I don't need to hang onto every scrap to remember what either kid has been through. Once upon a time, I couldn't even look at any of this stuff without bursting into tears. There are tears, though standing largely unshed. I just marched a bunch of stuff out. The triage will happen in fits and starts over the next few days as I need time to walk away from screens and try to get our analog lives in order. 

Dinner with friends reminded us both that we are largely unskilled at practical, house stuff, and maybe I need to clear out enough stuff so I can concentrate on learning the things so I can teach the boys.  There's a lot they don't know because we've been too harried/stressed/burned out to teach them ourselves. And I legit can't expect anyone else to do that kind of lift. 

I managed to clear through a bunch of nonpreferred activities this week, and now I'm triaging the next bunch, which includes getting the guy downstairs acclimated to the idea that he needs to be throwing as many irons into the fire as possible and have all the professional accoutrement at the ready for anything. Also means scaffolding for independence and all that it entails.

It also means not conflating my idea of happiness with his.

It also means not bending to his every whim because at some point, he needs to make his own way.

Thinking on some conversations during the week, I had someone do a little Monday morning quarterbacking with me that I've been chewing on. We all know what a disadvantage people with something extra are at: 75% of all people on the autism spectrum are either unemployed or underemployed.  The underemployed are "lucky" that some one has even given them a chance, and it's a good bet that they are paid lower salaries despite however more attentive to the thing they are than their neurotypical counterparts.

Often, there are more hoops to jump through; more disparities, more inequities, because the individual doesn't know any better, and people prey on that kind of ignorance, whether they realize it or not. 

When I look at my older guy and the World of Work, I see many things are much, much more complicated than when I was starting out, and while I have decades of experience, there are things that I am still learning this late in the game.  While I need to teach him to advocate for himself, I also need to educate him on the snares and tripwires that are hidden in a curriculum he was never taught--nor does he have the native knowledge.

Most people don't see this part--all the pregaming that needs to go into the most basic of things for people with differences. It's disheartening and exhausting, but it needs to be done. 

SO.  Be kind. To everyone. You have no idea what people are recovering from.