Wednesday, December 4, 2019

Legwork and Life: the Familyening

This is Legwork and Life, where I track the legwork and opportunities in my career as an autistic advocate, and also describe parts of my adult autistic life, including my perspectives on everyday problems and situations.

This L&L is to note that my life has significantly changed as of last Saturday.  We went down for Thanksgiving to celebrate with my spouse's family.  That was significantly exhausting and I'm still recovering this week.  But we also came back with Chris' younger brother, Ryan.  

The area we live in has a lot more by way of job opportunities and educational opportunities than where he was living, so he'll be living in our spare bedroom for up to two years while he gets his feet under him.  Like me, he's neurodiverse, and may need some extra support for a time.  Unlike me, he's been able to keep a part time or full time job for longer than a year in recent memory, so that bodes well for his success.

It's a major change, as I'm not great at sharing space in the first place.  My spouse should probably get a medal for putting up with me.  I think it'll be okay overall, as he has his own space and we pointedly tried to hammer out basic rules, which he read ahead of time and was okay with.  Regardless, though, it'll be an interesting (and challenging) experience.  

I tend to spend a lot of time home, which also meant being alone prior to this.  Depending on how quickly he gets a job, this may or may not be disrupted too much in the long run.  For now, my ears keep picking up on noises I wasn't expecting, because he has friends he chats with via the Internet and he also moves around the house sometimes.  I'll probably adjust to that in a week or so.  In the meantime, at least for sleeping, I'm looking into using MyNoise more, due to its excellent range of white noise generators of all kinds.  

I find the rain options particularly soothing, but really, any of them help tone down how much I can hear, which helps.  It's a great resource.

Mostly, I'm just hoping this goes well, and that I'm not too big of a grump or a jerk in the process.  

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