So what's with the blog?

From 2005 to 2018, I wrote a blog called Mom-Not Otherwise Specified. The blog title was a play on my son's then-diagnosis, which was Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified, or PDD-NOS, an autism spectrum diagnosis that was phased out with the DSM-V. The blog was about parenting and autism and my son, who was five when I started writing.

The Mom-NOS blog was popular and a few posts went viral, but the older my son got, the less appropriate those old posts felt. Now some of them make me cringe. 

My son is twenty-two now, and his life is his own. The old blog is hidden. But my life is my own, too, and after a few years' hiatus, I've realized that the same writing process that once helped me sort things out for my son might now be able to help me sort things out for myself. And let me tell you, I could use some sorting. 

Our lives have changed a lot in recent years. The pandemic prompted my family to take stock, shift priorities, and simplify. I rode the first wave of The Great Resignation and made a significant midlife career change as my son aged out of school. I left the job I'd held for twenty-five years, and now I'm doing a number of part-time and freelance jobs as an editor, writer, and teacher (all of which, I should add, I love). I’m married to a man who makes me laugh every day, even when—especially when—life is really, really hard, which is more often than we'd like it to be. I have a ten-year-old stepson and two goofy Golden Retrievers. I have anxiety and fear, and I have hope.

And now, once again, I have a blog.

Image is a picture my son took of his hand when he was five years old, which I used as the logo of the Mom-Not Otherwise Specified blog.