"I don't know what it is like to not have deep emotions. Even when I feel nothing, I feel it completely." -Sylvia Plath It's the nauseously repeated story of I can't keep up because I'm autistic. It's the shock at the accusal that I care about shit that doesn't matter. It's the putting on a fake smile because not showing my best side at all times leads to fights. Dismissals. It's the probably stupid at this juncture in my life shock (should all that be hyphenated?) of trying so hard and putting in so much effort that no one appreciates. What did I expect? I put my heart and soul into a job, and it's either ignored or exploited, or I'm told point-blank that it doesn't matter. And people get mad that I feel bad for doing something for naught. Why am I the bad guy here? I love the Twilight Zone, but I didn't want to live in the fucking thing! It's what feels like a noose, the constant constant of being misunderstood. I expla...
It's so simple, really. I took the kids that I nanny to the library to sign them up for the summer reading program, thrilled that both have a love of reading and honored to foster the joy of reading. The way their program works is the child gets rewarded for time spent reading. To mark this, you get to put different beads onto a necklace. The beads represent units of time, and each bead gets bigger and better with each increment. The 15-minute beads are small and basic; the 4-hour beads are large and animal shaped, etc. I took this to mean, for example, you could choose 4, 15-minute beads or 1, 1-hour bead, and that was that. However, the librarian explained to the kids that if they decided they wanted to trade in, say, 4 small beads for the one-hour bead, that was fine. All summer long, they could trade beads as their minds and tastes changed. As this trivial information hit me, I reflexively flinched, thinking about how this whole scenario would have gone in my...
I zig zagged in between an endless maze of tables, and finally caught sight of the yellow dress again. There she was. I walked up to her just as she was starting to stand up. She didn't hear or see me and seemed quite startled as I got close and said, "Hi, I'm Jason." She stared into my eyes, her mouth open, her cheeks flushed. She tried to stand up all the way and simultaneously looked ecstatic and mortified. She stumbled against her chair, fell into the butter on the table, and made no sound. Part of me wanted to run away because I felt terrible, the other part wondered if she was deaf, and maybe thats why she was startled and hadn't spoken. I quickly racked my memory, then slowly signed, "Hi, my name is Jason." She started to sign back, but then, she she shook her head and spoke, "I'm Melody." I almost had to have her repeat her name, I was so enamored with her eyes. They were green, startlingly green...
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