Hello and welcome! The Mission of Unlocking the Power of Difference is to create a safe and caring community that inspires people to step fully into their authentic selves and embrace the differences within themselves and those around them.
This is a detour from the initial mission of this blog. It began with the idea that it would be a place for parents of neurodivergent children to see the beauty of helping their children embrace their differences. However, the more I have thought about it, the more I realize that difference is so much more than that and that the only way parents can genuinely help their children embrace their differences is to learn how to embrace their own.
My deep desire to stand in my truth and help others stand in theirs comes from years of struggling to understand myself and find my place in the world.
I didn’t speak until I was three, and I burst out with complete sentences when I did. I was the first kid in kindergarten to wear glasses. As a proud ARMY brat, I was often the new kid at school. I could never afford name-brand anything in elementary school, and I avoided brushing my hair like the plague. To say I was uncool is an understatement. In a house full of music, I was the kid who struggled to find the right tune.
Perhaps the most significant difference I faced growing up wasn’t my difference but my father’s. In 1989, he was diagnosed with HIV at the height of Ryan White’s fight not only to live but to do something as simple as go to school. Like many at the time, my family chose to face this difference alone out of fear that we, too, would be ostracized.
This is the first time I have shared his diagnosis in such a public way, and I would be lying if I did not admit it is scary to do so. To be preemptive, as I know the question will be asked, our family was fortunate as my father was diagnosed quickly and did not spread the disease to my mother or anyone in our household, once we knew of his diagnosis we found it was quit easy to avoid the blood to blood contact required for it to transfer.
The words, “You cannot tell anyone, or no one will want to be your friend or play with you,” profoundly influenced my childhood and early worldview. The loss of my father a week before my twelfth birthday left me with a grief that I cannot begin to describe in this short introduction.
Today, the difference I most frequently grapple with is neurodiversity. I am very close to many people who have autism, adhd, and dyslexia, and the more I learn about these communities of people, the more I realize I am most likely neurodivergent myself. However, I find diagnosis in adulthood to be complicated and am not sure having it would be worth it to me at this stage in my life.
Sitting in lunch rooms in schools and hearing teachers talk about how they don’t want or feel unqualified or like they lack the support required to have neurodivergent children in their classroom, interviewing private schools for my children and being told they knew there school was not the right fit for my child without meeting them because of a label, witnessing double standards and seeing the damage of wait to fail approaches or lack of knowledge about neurodiversity has broken my heart again and again from my childhood experiences through to today.
Through memoirs and hearing the stories of others, I have come to feel great empathy with the struggles of the BIPOC and LGBTQ+ communities, as well as with men who feel like they cannot show any signs of perceived weakness and feel like they cannot be vulnerable with anyone. There is so much pain I have experienced or witnessed others experience and so many human gifts I have seen wasted because people feel like they are not good enough or they were somehow made wrong, I firmly believe that if we focus on the beauty of our differences instead of the shortcomings the world would be a much better place because of it.
Again and again, I return to a desire for this blog to be a place for learning to embrace the differences in ourselves and others. A place where we can sit across from each other and see the person behind the difference. To see the value we each bring to the world when we stand in our truths and stop trying so damn hard to blend into the background out of fear or shame. Eventually, I would love to welcome other voices from people who are different from me.
You will find stories, poetry, thoughts, book recommendations, and opinions here. I hope you will find a community of celebration, love, and acceptance, where we all strive to live in the wisdom of Maya Angelou, whom I have come to love deeply from listening to Brene Brown and reading her book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and learn to belong everywhere and nowhere, where we learn to belong to ourselves.
Not everyone who comes here will like what they find, and I know I will mess up somewhere and say something thoughtless, shortsighted, unkind, or incorrect. When I do, I hope you will correct me with the same kindness, compassion, and grace you want others to offer you. I will do my best to listen and learn. I will not tolerate blatant judgment, name-calling, cruelty, or a lack of civility. Comments of this matter will be filtered out to the best of my ability.
