I spent much of my twenties and thirties and half of my forties looking for answers through meditation and solitude. I am a shy person and feel most comfortable when I am in my own home. Although I enjoyed my work, I was happiest when I came home to my apartment, shut the door, and left the world behind. My apartment was full of me, and it felt safe and familiar. I met my husband in my thirties at a meditation retreat. After we were married, we both loved our solitude and meditated together every day. He is also a shy person; we are compatible in that way. We also both avoid conflict and usually just let others win the argument.
Together, we had our meditation friends that we hung out with, similar to people who associate with others who attend the same church. Our group became almost exclusive for those who practiced “our meditation.” I’m not saying our meditation isn’t incredible because it is, but it became a symbol of separation from those who didn’t use the same method. I still practice the meditation and will never practice another because it is simple and pure. But as a group, I felt we were using it as a form of identity—those who did our meditation vs those who did not.
At the time, I felt that my life was very spiritual, and I was evolving faster because of my practice and community. I even stopped working so I could go to more retreats. Then, in my mid-forties, my husband and I adopted our son. In the beginning, I still could meditate twice a day, but then, as he grew older and was diagnosed with autism at the age of three, my life became a whirlwind of adult interaction. I began to see what living and being an adult was really about. I didn’t have time to meet with my meditation friends and meditate. They soon moved on, and I had to integrate with the world. I felt like a fish out of water. But I knew I loved my son and realized my life was now about helping him grow up in this world I had been avoiding most of my life.
It was like the world was saying get up and stop hiding. I needed to integrate all those years of spiritual practice into a worldly experience. I began to realize part of my evolution was the integration of the spiritual with the mundane. It has been five years since my son was diagnosed with autism. It has not been an easy ride. Even now, it is a daily challenge that I have to talk to a counselor, social worker, or teacher regarding advocacy for my son. I feel like I am doing it wrong most of the time. I sometimes wish I could hide from the world and these challenges. But I know now that I would only be half alive. This interaction is how I integrate what I learned in the first part of my adult life into the last part.
Every day, there are constant surprises, new solutions, and adjustments to how to help him. I constantly need to decide if I need to address matters or if I can just let this one go. Multiple people are giving me contradictory advice on what I should do to meet his needs, and I’m standing there like a deer in the headlights.
But that’s when my years of mediation helps me step back and take a deeper look at the situation. I remember that the road is unclear, and nature is not black and white. There isn’t one medicine, therapy, or herbal supplement that will make him exactly what society thinks he should be. I am working with how he is now and trying to feel my way as to what is best for him without trying to fit him into a mold or my projection of who he should be. When I remember that, I can breathe again. I know he is OK; I am OK, and we are all without a roadmap navigating unfamiliar territory, and we don’t need to get it right. I will forever be learning how to function in this world, but my challenge is resting with the fact that I don’t need to have all the answers. Nor does he need to fit into a perfect societal box.
I was afraid to be with the living because I saw life as a harsh, uninhabitable place where I couldn’t be myself. I didn’t want to pretend to be something I wasn’t, so I hid from the challenge of my authenticity. My son has given me the best gift; through him, I see that we don’t need to be like everyone else and that our unique nature is the beauty of this world. When others might judge him or me, I feel bad for them. I say this because we put so much energy into being accepted and loved. But there is so much freedom when we let ourselves be flawed and maybe judged by those afraid of their imperfections.
I want to end this by saying let’s give each other the space not to have the same meditation, same religion, same political beliefs, same hygiene habits, same relationship with money, or really anything. Because deep down, we are the same, but as we move up and out into the relative, we are as unique and different as it gets. It is one beautiful world. That is true grace.
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