Hitting the Pause Button

Last weekend I met a woman similar to me. She has two kids – a son on the autism spectrum and a daughter who is not. A friend introduced us and pointed out my involvement with Autism Speaks. After we had talked for a while, this woman I had just met looked at me a little bewildered and said, “So you chair this event?” (She was talking about the Walk.) “You’re the person in charge?”

“Yep,” I told her. “Trust me—no one is more surprised than me.”

“And you’re a single mom? And you lead a Yearbook Club for Elementary School kids?” (I think here she added, “Who does that?” under her breath.)  “And you work full time?”

“Uh huh.”

“Where do you find time to do all that?”

I mumbled something like, “Oh, you know…” and let my sentence drift off knowing full well it had no ending. And just for a moment I saw myself through her eyes as she looked at me waiting for the end of the sentence that wasn't coming. What I saw was a capable, dedicated, somewhat sleep-deprived woman…who is just a little bit crazy. (In my defense, being just a little bit crazy is super-helpful in the getting-it-all-done department.)

For Christmas a friend gave me a framed quote:  “Now and then it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.” –Guillaume Apollinaire. A not-so-subtle suggestion that maybe I should, oh I don’t know, stop and breathe every once in a while. Pause. It’s a great idea…in theory. An idea I’ve been considering since receiving this thoughtful gift.

And then last weekend I saw myself through a stranger’s eyes. And I began to consider the idea a little more carefully.

When Ben was four he began to “sing his iPod” when he felt stressed. When I say “sing his iPod,” I mean that quite literally.  At first glance, it seemed as though he was singing songs at random for fun, or to self-soothe—not a terrible idea, really. But on closer examination, I could see what he was doing. He began by singing the first song on his iPod (if sorted by “Songs”) and continued in order until you stopped him. Singing the songs was not for fun—it was perseveration, not pastime. The iPod housed eight or nine hundred songs at this point so waiting for him to finish wasn’t really an option. Stopping him was difficult, however, because he so desperately wanted (needed?) to complete the task. Parenting requires that you get creative sometimes, and parenting an autistic kid is no different. So I got creative: I installed a pause button on Ben’s nose. It was important that it be a “pause” button and not a “stop” button because completion of the task was important to Ben and I didn’t necessarily want to keep him from that. I simply needed him to pause in his pursuit from time to time. It took some hard work to implement the nose-pause-button technique, but eventually Ben would pause without too much fuss whenever I touched his nose. (He later installed a "play" button on his chin, but that's a story for another day.)

It occurs to me now that I may need a pause button of my own (but maybe mine could be on my elbow, or my shoulder—somewhere a little more subtle than my nose). I have to admit, though, I’ve been worried about what might happen if I use that pause button. I’ve been wondering if I might pause in my pursuit of happiness only to find there’s no “happy” there to enjoy.

I sat with that worry for a while before arriving at the conclusion that it was a load of crap.  No “happy” to enjoy? Pfft. Just last weekend I finished painting a wall in my house that had been half-done for far too long. When I stood back and looked at that freshly-painted wall, the sight of it made me so happy I wanted to sing it a love song.

And of course there are my soul mates, coffee, wine and Dove Chocolate Promises. Those always make me happy.

Oh yeah—and those two wonderful, weird, charming and lovable, half-baked human beings I’m cooking? They make me pretty happy too.

I think I could work a pause into my schedule from time to time. What’s the worst thing that could happen?

Don’t answer that, just let me enjoy my pause.