Getting started

016 (2) — Mackie at Mystic Seaport in August, 2017 [Image description: A teenage boy is sitting curled up inside a large whiskey-style barrel that is on its side. He is looking off into the distance, a thoughtful expression on his face, and is dressed in a grey t-shirt with a sailboat image printed on it, and a pair of red shorts. He is using his left hand to limit his peripheral vision so that he can focus on something else he would prefer to look at.]

(From 2017)

This is just a “Hi!” from the blogosphere to let everyone know that we are here, and that Mackie is (mostly) ready to write. This is his mom. I am his communication partner, as well as his dramatic foil, for the most part since he is a teenager. In spite of my best (okay, better…well, at least trying to try) efforts, he does get really annoyed with me. It’s part of the territory, especially when you have to painstakingly spell out each thought on a letterboard. It’s exhausting for him.

(Updated to 2021)

Mackie is now an adult, and still exercises total control over what posts end up on this blog, which is why it’s only a now and then thing right now. He has completed his first college course, and is in the thick of his second. He types now, still a painstaking process, and still poking one letter at a time. He’s got stamina, grit, and determination to prove himself in a higher level of academics. Whatever that looks like going forward, we’re all in.

That leads me to my next *thing*, which is this. I get that there will be people out there who doubt our experience. I know that there may be those who want to immediately react and share their (ahem) feelings of doubt. I ask you to be thoughtful about it. Please, use your manners. Consider only posting a comment after you’ve taken a few hours to think about what you’d plan on saying, and that it is a response, rather than a reaction.

Take a page from Mackie, who wants to remind people of their “better selves”.