PSA to the general public and anyone who has seen me on any given Sunday over the last several months…
Yes. I am aware that I have worn the same outfit for 10 straight Sundays in a row. I know this. I know it. No, you are not mistaken. Yes, they are The Exact. Same. Clothes.
A light blue polo and navy blue stretchy pants.
I don’t necessarily “like” this particular shirt/pants combo more than others.
I am not “required” to wear them for work or anything like that.
Please understand, I am aware of my clothing choices and I DO actually own more than one outfit.
I own many in fact.
But on Sundays, I cannot wear them.
I can only wear my light-blue polo and my stretchy navy-blue pants.
Here’s why.
My son Jonah is autistic, you see, and routines matter an awful lot to him.
Over the course of the pandemic, all of our routines were obliterated and my son’s anxiety turned into an absolute nightmare.
My son became anxious about ANY and EVERY thing. Anxiety filled every part of every day of his life.
EVERY PART. From sun up to sun down.
I’ll give you one example of just a typical CAR RIDE during the pandemic.
Here’s what would typically spike my son’s anxiety while riding in the car.
(And when I say “spike my son’s anxiety,” what I mean is “he would uncontrollably scream.”)
Cars following us on the road. Cars just driving behind us. Hearing any sound from the speakers. Hearing anyone in the car cough or sniff. Stopping for any reason, including stop signs and stop lights. ESPECIALLY stop lights.
He could not do freeways or any roadway with the possibility of a traffic jam.
We had to start taking separate vehicles as a family because he would scream if his brother Jonny so much as cleared his throat which would make Jonny upset and we would have to deal with simultaneous duel meltdowns while driving. Fun.
I mean, Jonah would even get anxious over MY actions while I was driving. If I looked too far left before turning into traffic. If I turned on the air conditioning. If I changed the temperature. If I turned around to check behind me while backing out. If I hummed, sang, danced, whistled, fidgeted, or interacted in any way with anything around me, Jonah would get anxious.
It was literally anything and EVERYTHING.
That is just a glimpse of what “our pandemic” looked like.
So sometime over the last year or two, Jonah got it into his head that my clothes were responsible for my “behavior.”
If I was wearing my red shirt and I did something to make him anxious (like existing in his presence), then we sure as heck weren’t going to let Daddy wear that red shirt again. Because “red shirt Daddy” will make Jonah upset. Red shirt Daddy whistled once or accidentally played music in the car and we can’t have that.
Like EVER again.
Red shirt Daddy is now associated with “anxiety.”
If Daddy ever wears that red shirt again, we will scream at Daddy to “change his clothes!”
(You see where this is going?)
So, while I do own a lot of outfits, there were a lot more days during the pandemic than my current outfit collection.
But do you know what outfit I just happened to wear multiple times, mostly in Sundays and somehow never once caused Jonah any anxiety?
Yeah. That’s right. My light blue polo with my navy blue stretchy pants.
And so here we are.
Jonah has “grown out” of much of the pandemic anxieties.
I still can’t listen to the radio, or sing in the car, but at least I can take both boys together in the car again.
At least I can stop at stop signs and red lights without worrying about screaming from the back seat.
If you see me on Sunday in the exact same outfit I’ve worn every other Sunday for the past several months, it’s because Jonah still hasn’t overcome that pandemic anxiety about my clothes. (He still yells at me to change my clothes until I find some grubby t-shirts or my light blue polo with my navy blue stretchy pants.)
So my choices are “any grubby t-shirt” I wore during the pandemic when we never left the house, or this same “polo” outfit again and again…
So for (at least) the last 10 weeks and for the foreseeable future, this is what you get.
It’s a small price to pay for peace and a little bit of our sanity each Sunday…
I may be wearing the same thing I wore last week and the week before that.
…But at least Jonah can ride in the car again just to make it to church.
#perspective #ausome