My son is graduating from high school this Saturday. We had a video chat last night, talking about our dumb Autistic looping thoughts and how hard they are to explain. How lonely it is when no one else seems to get it. Every word he said felt like it had come out of my own head.
I’m the mom. I’m supposed to have things figured out.
But I don’t.
What I do know is that neither of us have any idea what we’re doing with our lives right now.
Grace has been hard to come by lately.
It showed up last night in that conversation, when I realized he was saying things I’d already thought four times that day.
He’s scared he’s going to do everything wrong and end up with something he never planned on—something worse than anything he can imagine.
I get it. That feeling never really goes away.
Even when you’re almost 50.
Even when you’ve lived a whole life, burned it down, and started again.
More than once.
Unfortunately, we fuck up sometimes. Not because we want to hurt people, but because we’re hurting. Or scared. Or miserable.
Sometimes we blow up the good things because we don’t recognize them for what they are until the smoke clears.
That doesn’t make us evil.
It just makes us human.
And humans need grace.
So this is for anyone who thinks they fucked up.
Anyone who blew up their life and is now looking in the ashes and seeing body parts instead of gold nuggets.
Who thinks they’re a piece of shit—and might even be right—
but also needs to know that being a piece of shit doesn’t disqualify you from grace.
I see you.
The misery won’t last forever.
That’s not what we’re built for.
We are built to heal.
Slowly.
Awkwardly.
In fits and starts.
But always, always with the chance to open again.
To try again.
Even if you don’t know what you’re doing.
Especially if you don’t know what you’re doing.
I didn’t know what to tell my son yesterday. So I told him the truth—that everything he was feeling, I’d felt too.
He said he just wanted to find the right words and maybe people would understand.
I told him I knew exactly what he meant.
I have a goddamn English degree because of this.
But maybe the right words aren’t the clever ones.
Maybe they’re just the real ones.
So, to the person reading this who needs the grace I always forget I have too—
I’m going to tell you exactly what I told my son:
No matter what you do or say, no matter how bad you think it is,
I’m here.
Come sit by me.
We can be fucked up together.