Adventures in The Life

For the past five years, I've had a blog named after my former yarn shop, The Knitting Experience. This isn't that blog. While I still knit, I no longer own a yarn shop; my life and focus has changed. 

Until The Knitting Experience blog, I was never one to journal (minus a brief stint of frantic writing to survive the mental impact of the cancer diagnosis.) As a good business owner, I knew that having a blog would be an essential marketing tool. What I didn't expect, was how much I enjoyed the process of blogging. What started out as a marketing tool, slowly morphed into an expression of me. After closing the shop this past spring, I found I missed having that outlet. 

Here's when being married to a computer geek comes in handy. Me: "I'm thinking I might want to blog again." Him: "Your domain is registered. Get started."  

Why Adventures in The Life?

The Life - Once Peter and I had moved from the dating thing, to the "Yeah, I think I could continue to hang out with you phase," we started referring to everything and anything connected to us, our world, as part of The Life. He'll come home and ask, "how's The Life?" Translation? "How are you? How did that appointment go? Did the boys have a good day? Interesting news from friends and family? Anything I need to know?" That's it. That's The Life. 

Adventures - For me, adventures refers to the part of life that isn't planned or scripted. The part that happens once you've set off on your merry way. Some of those adventures are the result of so-called careful planning -read: children. You can plan to have children, but from that moment on, other forces take over. Control is only an illusion in parenthood. What we have is influence and can only hope to use it well. Other adventures -cancer, autism- aren't chosen or even anticipated in your wildest imagination, yet they happen anyway. It is how you react that determines which way life will go next. It is these adventures that make up a life. The things that happen because of us, to us, and for us in the minutes, hours, and days we spend cruising along on the 5 or 10 year plan. Within each adventure are a thousand stories. Rather than bore my family with their retelling, I'm going to just put them out there in a blog and see what happens. 

What is this blog going to be about?

There will still be knitting. My sanity, and therefore the happiness of The Life depends on my access to yarn and fiber. It just won't be limited to the knitting. 

For the most part, it will be about sharing. Thanks to the generosity of the thousands of people who have hit upon their own life adventures and have chosen to share, my own challenges have been so much easier  to navigate than if I had make it all up on my own.  My focus is will often revolve around 3 themes: cancer, autism, and food.

Let's start with the big "C". At 28, while pregnant with our second child, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. How do you process that? Then, if you are fortunate, as I have been, to make it into survivorship, how do you fit that adventure into your life story? If you are smart - and I wasn't at first - you reach out to those who have been there. The willingness of countless women to share their stories took my breath away. I've been trying to repay their kindness ever since. Those who know me can attest that I'm never too shy to discuss my boobs or lack thereof. To tell you about entering menopause at 29. If you're getting reconstruction, I may even show my scars so you can see what to expect.

The next great adventure in The Life has been autism. Like cancer, our experience with autism has been supported by those who have gone before us and by those who are living with it now. 

I have a little confession, one that I'm not sure I've told to anyone beyond Peter and my mom. When the boys were the brand newest of infants, my overriding fear was that they would have autism. I was terrified of autism. In my mind, I pictured the TV-styled horror stories of having a normal, happy, healthy toddler one day, only to wake up the next, to discover them lost, trapped in their own bodies.  "Please, please, please," I pleaded with the universe, "I can handle ANYTHING else, just don't let them have autism. I can't handle autism."  

To this day, I have no idea why autism was the focus of my dread. Every new parent knows there are a million-plus terrifying things that can go wrong. None instilled panic in my heart like autism. 

But, we don't get to choose.  The baby I carried during the cancer? That is Alec. Alec has autism. He was diagnosed at age 4, but the signs were there beginning at 18 months. Autism is an adventure that touches every part of our lives and it has been nothing like my panicked imaginations. Each day of our life living with autism has been informed, aided, and supported by the willingness of others to share their experiences. Personally, I can't read enough first hand accounts written by people on the spectrum or their families. Seeing how others deal with the challenges we face is invaluable. I hope to contribute to that discussion. 

While not as dramatic on the surface as cancer or autism, another major concern in The Life is something as seemingly innocuous as food. I never gave food much thought before Alec. I'm not a foodie, and only an adequate cook. But, when we discovered that Alec has a severe food allergy - peanuts - food and I got acquainted real fast. We suddenly had to know exactly what was in our cupboards and where it had been. Then, 2 years ago, we tried a gluten/casein free diet after hearing reports that some individuals with autism show great improvement with a GF/CF diet. Within a few weeks, we noticed a dramatic improvement in Alec's ability to manage his symptoms of autism. Peter and I are now constantly learning how to shop and cook nut, gluten, and casein free. Again, it has been the experiences and stories of others that got us launched on managing The Life's dietary needs. Now I get to pay it forward.