I love this time of year when the days are getting longer and I awaken to birdsong in the early morning…

It feels so renewing and full of hope to know that spring has kept its perennial promise and has made the rounds again.

This year – I feel I need that…

And now… as I sit and lose myself in less considered and less tightly contained, controlled and measured words – I feel that I need to get in touch with deep down things that I have been pushing aside with my busyness.

I do that sometimes…

I use busy – wildly busy – as a distraction… a way to make me feel like things are in control and progressing and… in a way – this keeps me from getting too lost or sucked in by my own meanderings.

It is not a bad plan when it is working well…

But sometimes I lose the balance… and then I cannot find myself in the measure…

And I feel lost…

Distracted…

And it seems like everything falls into endless unanswerable questions…

And confidence drains away to some hidden subterranean place…

I see this coming…

But in avoidance or fear – I fail to name it accurately…

It is a leaking-in awareness – like light into an old-time photo…

but just a glimmer.

I am quick to dismiss it – and just get busier…

I seem to forget how to respond in a way that heads off this head-butting collision with overwhelm

because – ya… more is better…

But I am wrong…

Because it is stillness I need…

It is a quiet space for my racing mind…

And time to just meander…

And to let loose the things which I hold so closely – so tightly –

I need to ease up the reins upon my heart…

Release my stance of fiercely-determined-to-be-strong

Velvet my clutching-coal-to-diamonds-grip upon the things I feel.

I need to delve deeply into understanding that the swirling gyre of questions

Will not consume me…

I need to velvet my determination and accept that I do not know

And that this is okay…

And as I relax my no longer tensile hold..

It is then that I can be what I need to be for myself…

And what I need to be for others.

I need to shut it all off for a while… and breathe…

And notice that with my May windows flung wide to the evening air… I can hear the birds sing in the ending of the day…

And I can breathe in the knowing that letting go will help me find my measure…

And like the freshened world after a storm…

The tears of a ‘good cry’ will wash my soul…

And I’ll breathe in the uncertainty…

And then breathe again…

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30 Days of Autism is a project designed to fight stigma, promote civil rights, and increase understanding and acceptance for those who process and experience the world differently.

© Leah Kelley, Thirty Days of Autism (2014)