So you could have knocked me over with a feather when Red walks out the door wearing sports attire and IPod sports-band.
"I'm going for a walk," he announces.
There has been no prompting from me...at least not this morning. I had suggested the night before when he was in a bit of a funky mood to go walk it off. The little park we have around the corner from the house has recently installed a walking track made of crushed granite. His excuse for not exercising is that I don't take him to the Y often enough. Then there is the excuse of not walking in the neighborhood because of the cats may come up to him. Whatever that's about...
He walks a total of 8 laps...ON HIS OWN, and by this time, it isn't exactly cool outside. There is no shade on this track. I am so proud of him!
"I'm going to loose this weight. You have to stay on me mom! Even when I'm mad...especially when I'm mad, because walking will make me feel better. You have to make me do it!"
The irony there is that when he's mad...even when he isn't...I can't MAKE him do anything unless I threaten him with bodily harm. With me being 5 foot nothing and about 100 pounds lighter than him, that doesn't really go very far. In fact, it usually just makes him even more angry.
We spend the day together. I take him and his friend to the airport to go plane spotting. The day is relatively pleasant other than a brief screaming match over my asking him to turn the sound down on the radio in MY car, which has me questioning why the heck I am spending my Sunday with him in the first place.
On our way back home, his friend is starving and wants Subway. Red gets ice cream from Baskin Robbins, next door. His reasoning is that he doesn't want to have more than one soda per day. (Yeah...ice cream is so much better!) When we get home, he asks me if I would like to go back out to walk so that he can burn off those calories. Wow!
We walk 4 laps...in the dark.
Life with Aspergers is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.
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Adelaide Dupont · 285 weeks ago
And for those of us who knew and appreciated these points in high school to a greater or lesser extent - always good to have a refresher and feel them through the current and future generations who we survived to be able to see.
I especially appreciated points 5, 7 and 10.
And young women not settling or settling down yet is a good thing.
"It's never too late to live our dreams" - but it may be too early for some of them!
And 8 of course.
nicole · 243 weeks ago
Risa · 230 weeks ago
LAH · 221 weeks ago
Maira L. Coral · 216 weeks ago
I was looking for information for my Multi-Genre Disability Research Project from my Early Childhood Special Education class on the web, when suddenly I came across your blog. I started reading this out of curiosity and I want to tell you that as you said yourself, you will not be Amanda Gorman, but you managed to make me shed some tears, perhaps because I felt totally identified with your words, especially in the part that you speak of your son. My son also has Asperger's syndrome, he is 19 years old and he is in the second semester of College. Also like yours, he takes classes from home, likewise my eldest daughter is also taking college classes from her room. At the same time, that I work as a preschool teacher from my kitchen through a computer, my husband sleeps in the room during the day because he works at night. Also in the afternoons I myself take virtual school classes. I am a 51-year-old Latin woman who began to learn the English language as adult, so maybe you find some deficiencies in my writing, however, I was very moved by how proud you express yourself about your son. Referent your mother, I liked the humorous tone that you give when your talk about her, so I did not want to miss this opportunity and stopped my assignments for a moment to let you know that your words do make a difference, since they reach the heart of at least those who have opportunity to read you. I want confess you that is the most long I have written to someone I don't know, because your words inspired me, thank you...
Gavin Bollard · 209 weeks ago
Thanks for this post. I've been very distracted of late and so this was how I found out about our friend Kate. Kate's struggles were very real but they were so constant and so wide-ranging that it was difficult for people around her to address them. I think it's going to take a while longer for me to process all this.
I learned so much from Kate because she was always quick to point out the many injustices in the world. In her glory days, she was very much a crusader and she cared for everyone. Over the years, as her situation took its toll, I came to realise that it was the fact that she couldn't be put in a single specific category, that made the system fail her. She needed help that they weren't set up to provide.
She needed more care and she needed to be less alone. I'm so sorry that this has happened.
For a long while we were corresponding almost every day but a couple of months ago, I realised that she had become so stressed that nearly every interaction I had with her was starting to trigger her. I backed away to give her a bit more space. She only had a little time that she could stand to be online and there were too many things that she wanted to do in that time. I thought that by taking a step back, she could reach out to more people who might be geographically closer and able to assist.
Kate was a beautiful soul and she will be sorely missed by all of us.
diyalabs6192603 11p · 192 weeks ago
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Spoil your cat · 122 weeks ago
Many of these living arrangement aren't good, and many of the people who run those places really don't have the residents' best interest at heart. Those places are like old age homes and foster homes, where you sometimes hear horror stories. They're hard to trust. But then there are good ones, of course.
The best thing for an autistic adult is either to go on living at home or working and renting an apartment and living independently, but that isn't always an option.
Duncan · 112 weeks ago