HomeCrazzyHome

Today is our first anniversary! That’s right Cookie Monster and I met for the first time one year ago today.

Let me ask you…what would you think if someone took you home on the first date to meet her autistic child? Who was chasing her older sister around the house with a can of FAKE POO?

Most people would run as fast as they could right out of there. I certainly thought Cookie Monster would. I stood in the door way with love brimming over for my children and thought…Oh well, he was a great guy. I liked him but…

A year later I have learned and still am…not to underestimate this man.

Though I have not done much of it in the past year, I was a trashy romance writer. I wrote things that would have made Mr Grey blush. But the truth is…if I ever attempted to write our love story…NO ONE would believe it.

I mean a fifty-one year old single mother with an autistic child…finding true love and happily ever after…what are the odds? Being struck by lightening? Dying in a plane crash? Those have higher probability, right?

Yet I took the chance…of being real with someone. Being vulnerable. Holding nothing back…

And I won the most important lottery of life.

LOVE!

ACCEPTANCE!

HAPPINESS!

Honestly, it just keeps getting better and better every day. I love this man more and more. And while our life has not been stress free or without hiccups, including…

• Two moves in six months…
• The neighbor from…
• Having the police called during one of PanKwake’s meltdowns…
• Some very violent meltdowns especially in the beginning…
• Six weeks of constant noise and dust with a crew of as many as eight electricians in #HomeCrazzyHome…

We have weathered them all…grown stronger and closer together as a couple…and a family.

Three years ago when I attempted to access a personal budget through the disabled children’s team in London, I remember telling our social worker…

No matter what you offer, it can never be what I really need. A partner to just hold me tight after a bad day. To tell me everything is going to be ok in the end. Who gets as excited about PanKwake’s huge little accomplishments as I do. 

I was right…that is exactly what we both needed…and Cookie Monster is all that and more. Pink beards, penguin suits and water guns at dawn, he is there for us both…through it all.

He is why I believe in magic…fairy tales. He would be exceedingly uncomfortable with it…but he truly is our knight in shining armour. Our hero.

And not even my writer’s imagination could have dreamt up a more perfect man for us.

Yeah, I am crying again just thinking about it. But I don’t bother hiding my tears of joy. I think that perhaps Fate and my goddess intend that I cry a tear of joy now for every one of loss, hopelessness and loneliness that I used to.

To think that just a little over a year ago, I would go to bed and cry myself to sleep many nights…not because of PanKwake or the autism…but because of the exhaustion of doing it all alone. I don’t do that anymore.

Thanks to Cookie Monster…I have strong arms to hold me tight. A fuzzy pillow to lay my head upon. And even when I do cry…someone to tell me it is going to be alright. Someone who sees the beauty in PanKwake’s neurodiversity…who celebrates her unique perspective…and every accomplishment she makes. A partner who loves and accepts it all.

That is why I believe in miracles…

and Cookie Monster is the biggest one of them all.

And as un-feminist as this may sound, thank you for being my hero and saving us…when I could not save myself or PanKwake.

I love you, Cookie. More than you can ever know.

Happy anniversary! And I look forward to many, many, many more.