Busy Is As Busy Does

Things are going very well. I am busy. You've never seen unshowered yuckiness so busy.

Really. I'm a little bit gross, doing showers every other day-ish. Don't worry. I try not to go out in public like that.

It's excusable when you're sick, though, I try to tell myself. And I am sick. Oh, mommy, am I sick. I promise; I will not complain very long at all. Apparently, I have contracted some sort of vitamin-and-all-other-medicine-resistant, buckets-of-sticky-something-or-other-stuck-in-my-head cold. Whatever. It sucks and I've had it for about 11 days now. I just had to say it. I'm sick of being sick.

That is all the complaining I'll do. I feel like I've spent most of the last month complaining, and I can physically feel your eyes rolling. Or...maybe that was actually me. Hm.

On to the good stuff. Like I said, I'm busy. Crazy busy. I have a writers' conference coming up the first weekend in November, and I'm working my tail off trying to get ready for it. You know, in most other fields, conferences are mostly a chance to meet people and learn cutting-edge stuff in workshops. In writing, it's those things too, but most of the reason people go is to sell their material. Editors and agents from all over are at these conferences, and you can usually sign up for a few minutes with them to pitch. These are the same people who won't look at your work if you send it to their office unsolicited. If you can meet 'em at a conference, though, you could walk outta there with a contract. Or, well, at least a request for a full manuscript. And that's doing pretty well as far as I'm concerned.

So, I'm working up a proposal for the book I've been messing around with for about a year. It's a devotional book, so I have approximately 17 devotionals to write in the next month. I know that doesn't sound like much, but the only time I have to work on it is when the kids are sleeping. That, minus husband time and dinner prep and laundry (and...um, blogging...*blush*), ends up being roughly two hours a day. Oh, and I'm going to try to sell 10 greeting cards and a children's book series while I'm there as well, and all those need work too. So like I said. Trying not to freak out.

Honestly, though? Do you know how good it feels to be freaking out about being busy? Feeling busy is incredibly cathartic. It's...like...normal. It forces me to sit down with a calendar and figure out how in God's green earth I'm going to find a way to get this work done. And, oh, my. That's where I am. That's where my soul lives. When I have nothing to do but sit on my couch and get fat and worry about my son, I've lost myself. I find myself again when I'm working, when I'm moving and setting goals and meeting them.

And William's ASD test is in 11 days. Nervous? A little. Not really. Mostly relieved that it's coming. And I feel hopeful, too. I really hope we walk out of there with answers. I'm trying not to think about it going any other way.

In the meantime, I find myself coming to a conclusion I've come to a lot in the past four years. When life does not go as expected, I don't have to lose myself in it. God made me me, and I'm going to live through this according to me. All too often I default to this mechanical, very robot-like thing, where I assume the identity of whatever I think it should look like, and then I just go through unnatural motions until I go crazy. I became a mom determined to follow all the rules and assume the identity of what I thought "mom" looked like. Guess where that got me? Yep. Sitting in my bedroom, hiding from my new baby, staring at the ceiling, and wondering when I get to quit.

I'm not doing that with autism. I'm not going to get lost in this diagnosis. I'm not going to assume this whole "family affected by special needs," thing. I will certainly participate in that community (I don't think I'll keep my sanity otherwise), but I'm determined for us to continue living our lives.

We're going to go to the zoo. We're going to visit our friends in Cleveland again someday. I'm going to try to get better at knitting, and maybe make a few Christmas presents. I'm going to keep pushing on with my writing until it's my full time job, and I'm getting paid that way. I'm even making the kids' Halloween costumes. We're a family. Yes, we've been affected by unplanned pregnancies, mental illness, and autism. But we're going to have Halloween costumes, I'm going to continue my career, we're going to have family over for Thanksgiving, and we're going to have a Christmas tree. Too much?

Nah. That's life.

And I totally love it.