Call Me Icarus
Wednesday, December 25, 2024
It’s Christmas morning and I feel like I’m supposed to have words about miracles, magic, and the mayhem of joy that surrounds the hijacking of a pagan fun time in the woods by crass capitalism where we all sit around either a dying tree or a fake one and convince ourselves that the game of gift roulette where we all pretend to be overcome by joy because whatever it is well, it’s just what we always wanted is bringing us closer as a family.
I would tell you that I’ve only become a curmudgeon recently, but this kind of muttering into my cups about the holiday season has been part of my personality for a while. It’s a combination of an instinctive aversion to fun because said fun has often been defined for me by others and the understanding that tinsel and the other assorted trappings of this most festive time of year exist because someone found a way to monetize genuine joy.
Part of my Autism Journey (and yes, I’m capitalizing that because I’m that pretentious and plus it feels more like I’m marching to Mordor and not just gazing deeper into my own navel) has been a series of attempts at flight toward untrammeled joy, letting the big emotions we all have but end up expressing themselves differently if you’re neurodiverse bubble up to the surface.
Inevitably, this leads to someone telling me that’s too much. That I’ve crossed some sort of line I didn’t know existed. To calm down, rein it in. So the wings melt, curling under the rays of expectation, and the next time they unfurl, they’re a little smaller. Less elaborate. Less exuberant. Just so long as they’re less.
Until that moment someone tells me that it’s not too much. That they want to see me try the big wings this time. To sit with me and be there with my big feelings and my big joy and not tell me to dial it back. But to build those wings as big as I damn well please.