Safe Zones
Thursday, December 26, 2024
I used to be an asshole, now I’m just autistic. Back then I wasn’t a people person. Today I’m neurodiverse and exhausted by neurotypicals. Before I could just get over things, now I’m needing accommodation.
I’d tell you I don’t know where this is going, but I can see it from here, the winding path deep into navel country. Journeying into the self, past the ego, waving at the id, doing what I can to excavate something of me from the wreckage of what I thought I knew about myself.
Know thyself: first it was to know one’s limits, then to know one’s soul. Once the Christians got their hands on it, they figured it was more fun to know that the soul originated in God, and then overlay that with the knowledge of man’s sin nature. Lots of fun at parties, theologians.
Back before I was Spectrum Boy, I could Irish goodbye and it was just Dan being Dan. Still true, except now Dan knows it’s Dan heading to safety before his brain decides it’s going to find a way to get there without or without Dan’s consent.
Safety. We all want it. Happiness, sure. Brief frissons of joy peppering the banality. The difference is I know that, and some of you are figuring that out about yourselves. Our havens may differ, but our need for them is the same. Mine is solitude, and a staggering lack of expectation. I know that, now. I didn’t, then.