Comedy Through The Chaos

Hello, hello, hello, and happy Thursday to all of you cadre friends. I am Miss Shannon Paul and welcome to this edition of Comedy Through the Chaos. I'm glowing today, which I'm going to consider a good thing, I did not expect to be glowing this much. I might dampen that down a little bit, but I have to put on full makeup in a little while so that'll just take care of it, so it'll be fine. So if you wonder who I am, a variety of word related things, I'm a comedian and a corporate speaker and a voice actor and an event MC and a benefit auctioneer, and I am primarily the proud parent of an adorable 17 year old kiddo who happens to be high supports on the autism spectrum.

Hello, K. Barak, I love all of the numbers that you have behind the letters in your screen name. Welcome aboard. Welcome aboard. I am Miss Shannon Paul. Hello, I was just explaining a variety of word related things that I am. Welcome aboard. Hello, Steph. I am bringing people up to speed on a variety of things that I do that are word related and explaining why I am okay with the fact that I am kind of glowy today. I will be doing full face a lot of makeup in a little while. This evening, I will be the MC and benefit auctioneer at an event.

It's going to be an event called Ignite. It is going to be a fundraiser for an organization here in the Twin Cities called the Brand Lab. So I will be there later this evening. So I get to decide this after I talk to you lovely folks. m. central for this edition of comedy through the chaos on our caregiver Thursdays is because this is the last moment of adulting time I normally have before I go pick up my kiddo at school. And so I go and I talk to all of you. I share what's going on here and then I go pick up my kiddo.

And so when I get to decide I want to do speak wonder, I'm going to get to you in a second my friend. Oh my heavens, I had a chance to watch part of your replay. m. central. So I need to go pick my kiddo up and then very efficiently make it to the event . So I'm going to go pick him up, get him landed with my sister and then go to the event that I have to go to so I've already picked out the outfit and I need to put on her makeup and do all of these things. So what I'm probably going to do is finish chatting with all of you fine friends, put on my makeup and then go there and then get dressed after I get home because there have been a few times when I had to pick him up in full gala attire and it turns into just a big thing with his staff at the school because then it turns into, hey, look at mom.

And I just don't need that because they're used to mom normal clothes and I don 't need that. They know that mom has a non-standard job so I just don't need it. They need just, it just makes me stick out in a weird way and I just don't need it. It just, it makes them take me less seriously as a mom and so just leave it alone. m. in the afternoon. Take wonder, let me say this before I move on to what I was going to talk about today. My friend, I am so glad that you are safe. What an ordeal that you went through today.

Oh my heavens. And I know that it is not a competition, but man, you did make me feel like I need to not bitch about what I'm about to bitch about today. I am glad you are safe. You are a wonderful human being and man, a story of resilience. Yes, my friend, cheers to you. You need, you deserve all of your roses here, mine are a little wilty, but if I could give them to you, I would give them to you. You are welcome. So I hope everything smooths out for you because you deserve some rest and some peace in your circle because all I was going to, here's what I was going to talk about today because we talk about a variety of things here in the cadre sphere and we have been focusing on the concept of safety and even when we got the subject matter of safety.

Safety is one of those words that I have a very tenuous relationship for a variety of reasons because I think that we really have to question whether a lot of us get to a position of feeling safe by the standard definitions of it. And so this week was one of those full disclosure, one of those weeks where it just reminded me where there were a lot of reasons why I don't necessarily feel safe for a variety of reasons. And as we are continuing to build the cadre sphere, a lot of what we used to talk about here on our caregiver Thursdays was caregiving from a variety of standpoints and for me personally, a lot of what I would discuss was from the perspective of being a mom that happens to have a kiddo who's high supports on the autism spectrum.

And that still is a lot of what I talk about. That is not his full experience. He is a lot more than a kiddo that happens to have autism. He is a fully formed human being, but that is part of what makes him who he is and part of what I'm very proud of that a lot of things that he works on. So this has been a very difficult week for a lot of us that are in and part of and adjacent to the autism community. So I'm not even going to lie, I've been angry, angry, very angry this week and deciding how to navigate a lot of those emotions and deciding how I feel about the way that I've championed parts of this community and the way that I feel about talking about certain things and honestly questioning whether it's just questioning a lot of the conversations that I think a lot of us have had and how things have been positioned.

So continuing to have those things, yes, you should post a pick in the thread of your windshield. Yes. Oh, you should post that. You should post that. Yes, I would love to see a picture of that, yes, and I'm just glad the fact that you had more concerns about whether you had time to dry your hair this morning. My dear friend, I appreciate you. You are calm and steady in the face of many storms, in the face of many storms. I think that also back to this morning, one of the things that I had to give myself grace on is the fact that I am also allowed to feel all the emotions and feel anger about the things that I was angry about.

That's one of the things I was talking about, one of our other leaders here, Sh anna stuff and I talk often about things and we talked about that and why I was pissed about these other things, why what I was feeling about this, you know, when my mama bear gets into place and then making sure that I don't allow that anger to misplace the other things and the other emotions that I think I also am allowed to feel, which brings me to yesterday and yesterday you'll see a little post because I do usually post some videos here in the cadre sphere and yesterday was a funny day and the reason why yesterday was a funny day, we are into the school year, we started after Labor Day here in the Twin Cities in the great state of Minnesota and my kiddo and I, we have a very loose relationship with getting to school on time, very loose, very loose.

We get there around-ish whenever we get there is what we do. You start the process and it happens as it happens and usually, you know, if you could get there before nine, I would love it, you know, that would work. Usually what I consider in my head on time would be nine o'clock, you know, that's when their morning meeting is, but really on time is around eight forty five and we haven't made it to school at eight forty five in the longest time, in fact, it was been so long that I forgot that that was on time because we just, it hasn't been a milestone I'd been interested in.

m. just to not stress myself out. , but it was here at the house. m. So I wasn't even trying that hard to stress myself out. And for some reason yesterday morning, things went incredibly smooth, like he got up, got his stuff together, instead of having multiple conversations about getting dressed, I put the clothes next to him. The first time I put him down, he just got dressed, and then not only just got dressed, grabbed his blanket, picked a hat, started walking to the car. To the point that I was like, where are we going, buddy?

Because I'm so unaccustomed to him walking to the car without me considering, I mean, me suggesting that we walk to the car, that I was sure that he was going some place else, that we are on our way to the swing or on our way to go look for his phone or do something else. And I thought he was walking to the car, but he was. And so he got in the car, unprompted. He shut the door, unprompted. I got in the seat and then texted staff, because I do that every morning, because we're usually or so on our own schedule.

What I do every day is I text him, hey, on our way, we'll be there in about 10 minutes. Every day I do that. I text him that we'll be there in about 10 minutes. So they're not just sitting there waiting when I don't know what time we're going to be there. 35 yesterday morning I text him, we'll be there in about 10 minutes. And we got there and he got out of the car and his staff member, who he's been with since last year, actually since the year before last, was like, looked a little shocked. And I was like, I know, right?

And my kid, oh, got out and then looked around and looked a little surprised with himself. Like he didn't know if he was really happy being there. And looked a little upset, like maybe he asked me to go to the dollar store, maybe something else, but I was like, okay, see you later. And I drove away and my first response when I drove away was, maybe something's going to be wrong. Hey, Matt, how are you? Maybe something's going to go wrong. Like I remember driving away and being worried. Not being like, hey, that was great.

I drove away feeling like, oh my gosh, when's that other shoe going to rob? It's not this, this can't be right, it can't be this early, it can't be great. And so I drove away and I was about to, when I got home, instead of like going, oh, wait, now you have extra time to get ready. You didn't come home hot, worrying about, oh my gosh, I didn't have to rush. It's like, you actually have time to make some tea and get your act together before you have to do this session when normally you're coming in all hot.

Hey, thank you. So I'm like, all right. I'm like, okay, I had to calm down because the first thing I was going to do was prepare for the negative as about this Texas teacher and go, hey, if anything goes wrong, just let me know. I can come pick him early. I just have a meeting and tell about 11, 11, 30, I can come get him if he's upset. I was like, no, no, don't presume that anything's wrong, Shannon. Just presume everything's great, right? Just presume everything's great. Just put great into the attitude, put great into the universe, put positive into the universe.

Know that you are there for him if anything goes poorly, but don't presume that things have to go poorly. Maybe he's just in a good mood today. Don't presume that he woke up on the wrong side of the bed and he just didn't notice that he was on his way to school. He's been going there for three years. He knows where he's going. He knows what happens in the morning. Don't presume he didn't know what he was getting himself into. He's a really smart kid. There were so many times during the day when I had these moments where I had to literally talk myself into exhaling and then sit there around lunchtime.

I almost text them and go, hey, how's he doing? I was like, stop it, mom. They would text you if he was upset. They've done that before. If he was having a rough day, they'd let you know. Nothing's wrong. Don't presume something's wrong. Go about your day. You're fine. Have another cup of tea. Make yourself something to eat. Everything's cool. You know what I had to do? I started going, you know what? Plan for a great day. Presume that everything went great. I said, you know what you're going to do instead?

Get your stuff done after. Make sure you get all your stuff done in time because I had a meeting. I got all my stuff done and I gave myself enough time and said, you know what you're going to do? You're going to run to the store and you're going to get him some cupcakes so that you can celebrate the fact that he had a good day. So plan for things to go well. Don't plan for things to go poorly. And so I got my stuff done leisurely in a good mood for this time instead of under that stress, instead of under all of that, oh, maybe something might go wrong.

And I get to the grocery store and I bottom some cupcakes. We have some left here. You can see him here. I'm in my kitchen. He didn't even eat them all. Just so you know I didn't make up the story. In case you're like, Ms. Shannon made this whole thing from, no, I did not. I literally, literally, because sometimes that's what you have to do is you have to manifest it and make it real to yourself. I said, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to plan for the celebration. I'm going to make it manifest into something positive.

I'm going to go, you know what? I'm going to pick up something that said, hey, I'm celebrating the positive. I'm going to celebrate our happiness and not plan for the negative. And that's what I did. I stopped by the station at the store and I got something and I said, you know what? He deserves heated or sprinkles because he deserves happiness in a great day. And I got there and I texted him and I got there at 3 o'clock and he came walking out with his staff member and he was smiling and the staff member was smiling and I had these in my hand and I said, did you have a good day?

And he said, good day. And I said, I got you some cupcakes. I'm glad you had a good day. And we came home and that's what he got to have for first dinner because we eat like hobbits in my house. We have a lot of meals, a lot of meals. So plan for the good as much as we plan for the bad. Yes, it is so good sometimes just to be able to go, yes, I know I have put in safeguards. I have safety nets. I have those things and especially as caregivers. That's how we get through. I know that as much as anybody else.

I have alarm systems. I have safety nets. I have security things in place in case something happens. I have notes in the window so that people know that I have a special needs kid. I have a thing on the refrigerator that says, here's how you contact people. I understand that we need those things people. But we also need to go, we can also plan to have a great day. We don't have to sit there and be so stingy with our happiness that we're not also allowed to plan for that side of things too and go, what can I do to also plan for the happy side of things?

Because then we spend so much time being on the negative side. The thing that we do to self-preserve, the things that we do to make sure that the negative things don't happen again, that we miss out on all of the confetti and all of the sparkles. I love the leavencees as well, yes. We miss out on all of those things as well. So do your best to make sure that you plan for the great days as well and give yourself a chance to exhale and go, hey, what would it be like if this was a great day? Because sometimes it is, and you deserve to celebrate.

So whatever version of cupcakes you have in your world, go get yourself some. Treat yourself. Maybe they're a little bit bigger than ours in ours. I thought about getting that, but I knew if he didn't eat them, mom would eat them all. And I don't need that much sugar, they don't work well with perimenopausal women. So plan to celebrate, make sure that you are not stingy with your happiness. Go out there, celebrate the good times as much as you can, feel all of the emotions, friends. Feel the happy moments, feel the sad moments, feel the great moments and the not so great moments.

You deserve each and every one of those, especially as caregivers. We need them all. We need them all folks. m. central. m. central, but I'll throw out. So speak wonder, favor, make sure you put in a photo of your windshield. I promise I will put in a little video for everybody of what I end up looking like later when I turn all of this glow into like a glow up just so you can see what I ended up looking like when I go to the pick up line later. But please everybody, let us know what we can do to continue to support you here in the Cordray sphere.

That is why we're here is to continue to build community to let you know whatever we can do to continue to support you to make sure that we are here the way that you need us to be here for you with what we can do because we know you need different things at different times. That's why we have so many different contributors and why we're continuing to build and to build this community. That's why we need each other. So drop us all a note, continue to let us know what you need for doing that and we'll make sure that we try to keep being here.

So stay safe, the universe is a scary place sometimes y'all, we'll see you again soon.