Change

It's eleven o'clock at night and the house is silent, except for the tumbling clothes in the dryer and the soft snores of Rascal.

But I can't go to sleep. Even though I know that morning will come in no time and I will wake with the same wish for more sleep that I wake to every morning.

I can't stop thinking tonight. I'm thinking about change, and how I am no good at it. It's one of my spectrumy traits.

Not just outward change. Not just the change of the time or seasons. Or even the changes of homes and schools that are upcoming events for our family.

I'm talking about a change of opinion. Even a change of heart.

I don't do well with acknowledging these things. It's easier to keep my head down and keep pressing on. It's easier to fight against the winds of change and bury my feelings than to deal with the emotional work of acknowledging that I don't know what to do next. That I may have been wrong. That we need to follow a new path.

What is harder? Venturing off the beaten path into the scary unknown or walking along the familiar road and knowing that it ends up somewhere you don't want to be? The answer may be easier for you than for me.

And so I sit in the almost-quiet and I wrestle with myself. I wonder if tonight's revelations will be tomorrow's changed actions. I wonder if I'm brave enough or strong enough. I wonder if the emotion will get swept away by sleep deprivation and routine and if tomorrow it will yet again just be easier to keep plugging along than acknowledge there could be a different way. A better way. Even if I don't exactly know what that way is.

I wonder.