Things are going well today. I took a few of the suggestions from my comments, and it seems to be working. First of all, before Erik left for work I asked him to give me a few suggestions on exactly what I should do today in order to try and prepare for my parents arrival this weekend. That helped a lot because it helps me NOT feel totally overwhelmed by everything that needs to be done. So after he left I decided to tackle the kitchen. I put on some music and decided that if I could make it through at least 1 song then I had something to be proud of. Well, getting started was the most difficult part. Once I got started it felt quite therapeutic really. Before I knew it the entire kitchen was clean (with the exception of the floors, but that can wait for either later today, or tomorrow.) It always feels better when I'm not surrounded by chaos. I am defiantly no perfectionist, but having order in my home helps bring order to my mind.

A dear friend of mine has a child who is autistic. Yesterday I was researching autism a bit because I feel like the more I know, the better friend I can be to her. I found a web page full of poetry written by an autistic man in his 40's. The poetry wasn't the traditional poetry that we think of. He was just writing, in the most honest way I've ever seen, his thoughts, his fears, his loneliness. I was totally enthralled by his writing. I read so much of it, that after awhile I found myself thinking in that same pattern that he wrote in. It was excruciating really. I feel like I got this tiny little glimpse of exactly what it must be like to live with autism. To be honest, it made me feel like I had so much inside of me, so much that I wanted to express, so much that I wanted to share, but my mind and body wouldn't co-operate with me anymore. Things in my head were moving SO FAST that I couldn't stop long enough to express any of those things in any way that the world could understand. I felt so incredibly frustrated that I broke down into a weeping, blubbering mess and had no idea how to function normally anymore. I'm glad I had that experience. I feel like I learned so much, about myself, about the world, about the way that we treat other human beings that society in general considers 'disabled.' We're really all the same in our core. We all have the basic needs of shelter, food, clothing, and LOVE. We all need to feel like there is someone in this world who understands us and accepts us as we are.