The Single Step
Life is a journey.
A journey that, starts years before you are even conceived, but for me, it only really began three years ago.
February 17th, 2017, a date I will never forget. I had been waiting for today for nine months, ever since that first appointment, sat in the nurse’s office.
I woke with a start, sitting straight up, suddenly startled, a rabbit in the headlights. I had tossed and turned for what felt like days the night before, incapable of switching off the incessant thoughts whirring around my brain. I ghosted through the day, passing through the familiar hallways and blue tipped staircases of school, as though sleepwalking. Class after class, information flooded my brain, and left as quickly as it had arrived. I wasn’t there, not really.
I just wanted an answer. I desperately wanted to know if, finally, I might know why I was the way I am. 1pm…2pm…3pm…Still no answer. The final bell of the day rings and 600 teens descend on the streets, eager to get home for the weekend. Slowly and carefully, I begin packing up my supplies, carefully placing my art folio into its case and zipping up my bag.
By the time I made it out the door, the school grounds were empty. One foot in front of the other, that’s all I need to do. They said they’d call as soon as they knew, and they will. Thoughts racing, I walked the path I took every Friday. Out the gate, down to the right, through the alleyway to the Church and down through the graveyard.
It had been raining and there were pockets of water covering the leaves, droplets on the gates and murky puddles on the path. Stepping carefully over each one, I heard the sound of the orange stones crunching and turning beneath my converse.
Bzzzzt.
Bzzzzzzt. Bzzzzzzzt.
This was it. Finally, after months of waiting, I might have an answer. This was the call I had been eagerly anticipating since I startled awake at 6.43 this morning. With a shaking hand, I reached into the lining of my coat pocket to grab my phone.
Bzzzzt.
Bzzzzzzt. Bzzzzzzzt.
Answer it, I screamed at my hand which was frozen in place. Answer it. With every ounce of energy in my body, I slid the call button across until I heard the familiar voice of my mother on the end of the line. Well? I asked, getting straight to the point.
You have a diagnosis. You have Asperger’s.
They say that ‘The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.’ I guess, for me, those three words were the single step.
3 years later and I am still discovering who I am. Every day I am learning more and more about what makes me, me. I, for the first time in my 20 years, 11 months and 4 days am beginning to understand myself, my true
self.
So, in celebration of World Autism Awareness Week, I invite you along on my ongoing journey of self-discovery as I share with you my Invisible Life – Living with Asperger’s.
Love,
The Invisible Aspie x