Sometimes change or the unknown sneaks up on you like nobody’s business. It comes at times either days ahead of when it is to take effect or when you least expect it. The only thing you can do is embrace it and learn to grow with it and be sure you can either adapt or prepare for what to expect.

The past week has put on a really big change for me as to how I am going to be transported as the day program is transitioning to the county’s paratransit program. For me it has been a big change because there is a deeply embedded negative history that has come with it. But times have changed since things have happened and there must be a time when you must give things a chance to work out.

It is not as totally bad as it has seemed to be because 10 years ago, I had to go through a different transition and other riders had to switch to the paratransit system and they are still there, so it will be something that I too need to embrace. It is something that most at the day program will need to embrace and endure to see how it goes.

To be honest, it was something when it was told to me in the beginning that I wasn’t too fond of. I crawled in bed all day and just hid there just scared of it and not willing to accept the reality of what I was told.  My anxiety kicked into full overdrive and all I could think about was running away from something that I had already precipitated that was going to happen possibly a month away and seemed overly scary to me. It was like I just wanted to run away from what I had to do.

But what I must do is embrace it because it in a way provides access to my community employment and is what supplements my income. It is a reality that can be hard to accept, especially when something like program vans has always been there for decades. But, like many things in the way of the world, there have been reasons that cannot keep that method going any longer and sadly, that is the reality of the things that we must accept whether we like to or not.

It is also knowing that there are things that even as a result of current times that we must embrace even as they are popped up all of a sudden, like the dining room at the local fast food restaurant being closed at 7:20 PM for no apparent reason, but there is someone sweeping inside, again when you are looking forward to something from that restaurant and then you learn you cannot access it and you realize that the drive-thru is wrapped around the building and you just don’t have the patience to wait, you think of the next (or what we know as the only) other alternative in town and go there. It may not have been what we have wanted, but it fills the void of what we needed for the evening.

 Change is an inevitable part of life, it happens, and it can provide many variables along the way. That can be hard to hear for an autistic person such as myself, but it is the reality of life. There is no getting around the fact that things are never grounded to be in place for life. Things change at times and maybe for the better, we just must let it see how it grows on us. Like anything I do, I don’t want to accept it because it seems scary and challenging in the beginning, and yest, there may be bumps along the way. but that is the way that we must accept things if they are required to have us function in society.

Someday, I’ll look at this and think about this big change and think about how I survived without it. It is like anything I do; it seems like the worst possible thing in the world then when it comes to the time for it to actually happen you see that it isn’t really as bad as it seems to be. It is giving things a chance to work out and be the best that they can be and allowing them to grow on you for once and maybe they will be the way that they will allow you to grow even more than where you are now. It takes some time by allowing you to embrace the change and being able to be patient along the way before moving on.