I was in my mid-twenties—a mom of two small girls and wife to a skilled but struggling contractor who built custom homes. We lived on a virtual shoestring. Nonetheless, my life stretched ahead in an optimistic array of expectations, hopes, dreams, reality, and a thirst for beauty and spiritual depth. With hard work and planning, we could live and love and achieve.
While I delighted in creating a nest, deep down, I knew I needed more. For my mental health, I soon found I could turn mundane chores into exercises of efficiency and take pride in “using my time wisely.” Living for others’ expectations was a way of life back then, yet I struggled to distinguish between my identity and theirs.
Needlework helped keep me sane. It provided an outlet that was practical but, more importantly, beautiful. I knitted, crocheted, and sewed. I poured over quilt patterns. That’s when I discovered the tulips.
The tulips were simple appliques in a quilting book. Bold, bright, and cheerful. I knew I wanted to use them. I didn’t know how or where. I especially didn’t know when.
Because. Time.
I purchased the fabrics—vintage material now—cut and even appliqued a few. Then mother-ing and wife-ing and other-ing took precedence, and the squares and cut-out tulip shapes were tucked away for another time when, who knew, they might make their way to the top of my list.
Fast-forward fifty years.
Fifty years. Thirty-three of those years included recognizing and writing about a segment of my life—a story within my story. Among many other life happenings, I rethought the events and developed a deeper understanding. Like the tulip squares in the bottom of my cedar chest, the story version morphed as it percolated.
How did time get away? Should it matter?
I’m reading the book “Unmasking Autism.” It states, “Expand the time frame you use to gauge productivity and success. Take the “long view” of your life. Don’t be afraid to cycle back to old projects. Slow down. Stillness helps neurodivergent minds process the huge quantities of data we take in.”
“In order to build a life that suits them, [the autistic] have had to learn to let certain unfair expectations go and withdraw from activities that don’t matter to them.”
After fifty years, the tulips found their place in a new nest I’m creating. Because sometimes “You have to be able to say ‘no’ to certain unreasonable expectations in order to genuinely say ‘yes’ to the things you care about.”
My writing process has given me the “long view” of my life. So what if it’s taken time?
Now, the story is ripe. It’s ready. I’m scheduling, as God directs, its launch no later than a year from this fall.
It’s also time for the tulips.
(All quotes from “Unmasking Autism” by Devon Price, Ph.D.)
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