I even played baseball
This is not something I plan to write much about. I'm not ashamed. It's a part of who I am. So is male-pattern baldness, astigmatism, and a genetic predisposition to enjoy cilantro, and I promise I won't write about those things either.
Iâm writing this because I cut a check for thousands (with an s) of dollars to the IRS earlier this month.
(Paid taxes: check).
When I was in high school, I scribbled little poems in all of my notebooks.
In one poem, I wrote about the peace of walking through fresh winter snow. It was a meditation on leaving behind all your worries and troubles for a time. At the end, the guy drives a knife into his chest rather than re-enter the world. I remember the last lines clearly.
And the knife plunged into his chest
Leaving the snow a bloody red mess
I thought it was hilarious.
My mother cried. I guess my solitary nature led her to the wrong conclusion.
(Wrote a poem: check).
Ok maybe thatâs not a great example of writing a poem. Letâs try again.
In the last few weeks of high school, I moved out of my parentsâ house.
I lived on a back porch that I cleverly disguised to look like a bedroom. There were blackout curtains, a lava lamp, a full-sized mattress on the floor, and a stereo: what more could I need?
The answer is air conditioning, if youâre wondering.
That summer was hot. Fans ran around the clock. Windows and doors were open wide. My fiancĂŠ and I taped the holes in the screens with duct tape.
(Dated my first wife: check)
It was June when my sister came over with a small box in hands. âI have something for you.â
I tried to take it from her, but she pulled it close. âFirst, let me explain. I didnât know about the contest.â
And she had me hooked. I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about.
âA few months ago, I found your backpack from school with all your notebooks in it. When my teacher asked for a poem, I just turned in one of yours.â
âGod damnit. Why?â
âMy teacher entered the poem into a statewide high school poetry competition, and I sort of won second place.â
I wish I could identify the emotion I felt. Itâs hard for me to tell the difference between rage, pride, murderous rage, and joy. Itâs all just a pounding heart and active nervous system.
âI wanted you to have these.â She opened the box with a small plastic trophy and a certificate with her name and the title of my poem on it. It said runner-up. âThe winning poem was stupid. Your poem should have won.â
(Wrote an award-winning poem: check).
My first marriage was a roller coaster. She wanted life to be like a country song. I wanted life to be like a Jules Verne novel. There was no âBoot Scootinâ Boogieâ scene in Journey to the Center of the Earth, so I should have known the marriage was doomed. After one too many weekends of beer before liquor, I realized I didnât want to live this way.
(Used a toilet unassisted: check)
Right after we split, leukemia happened. Not to me or her, but our four-year-old daughter. Suddenly, having a job wasnât enough. I needed a career. The kind that came with sick pay and insurance and a salary that could reliably cover the expense of driving the one-hundred-twenty mile round trip to visit her in the hospital.
Powerless to fight the cowardly devil hiding in my babyâs bone marrow, I had no choice but to gather resources to survive the siegeâa degree in IT, a paycheck from a casino, and benefitsâsweet, sweet benefits.
The devil is long since dead, and the casino still pays me sixteen-years later.
(Hold a job: check)
Like the title says, I even played baseball. I was a mediocre second baseman, terrible outfielder, and decent cleanup hitter for the first two years of little league.
My dad cracked a line drive straight into my face before my third season started. For the next two years, I played like shit. After my last season, we found out I needed glassesâmaybe because I got knocked out by a baseball.
(Play baseball: check)
Iâm close to my parents—unless my dad is within armâs reach of baseball gear.
I have three daughters from two marriages.
My wife and I are close with my ex-wife and her new husband. We do birthday parties and even holidays together sometimes.
(In-tact family: check).
Despite all these checks, I can assure you I am autistic.
Socializing is like a piano recital: hard work and hours of preparation after years of practice to get it right. And thatâs just to get by for an hour or two.
The smell of cooking bell peppers sends me running for fresh air in a retching panic.
When I meltdown it scares the bejesus out of whoever Iâm around.
My stimming drives some people crazy.
Anxiety, depression, isolation, sleeping problems, limited interestsâŚ
The way I speak sometimes hurts the people I love the most, and I donât realize it.
Autism is often experienced very differently from person to person. [That's why the word spectrum is used to describe it.] (https://the-art-of-autism.com/understanding-the-spectrum-a-comic-strip-explanation/)
So the notion that large swaths of children are never going to be able to check off any of those experiences is nonsense.
It's telling that the first point of concern mentioned is that autistic children wouldn't be able to pay taxes. THE HORROR. No wonder the government is so interested to getting to the bottom of this!
This narrative does a lot more harm than good.
Then again, when have the unhinged ramblings of a paranoid man in a position of power railing against the combined wisdom of generations of experts been helpful?