attachments

The monotropic mind tends to dig deep grooves fixating on what it can. We don't handle change or adapt well, because we become so attached to the way things are, or if we get too lost in our own heads, the way things should be. It isn't just difficult in some nebulous sense of sweating and struggling, but wounding and extraordinarily painful, losing everything I've been fighting to get used to.

Some in the autistic community will say that we are not disabled, just different, trying to function in a world designed by and for neurotypicals. I think what they're missing is that neurotypicals are all kinds of different from one another but they're also much better at adapting to whatever life demands. The inability to adapt is the problem. It's not a matter of being different. It's disabling.

As I struggle to get from one day to the next, I cling to what I can. I become attached. Then life goes and rips it all apart, and it hurts like hell. I've been through so much here in Philly. It wasn't what I'd wanted or chosen, and pushed me well beyond my comfort zone, but now that it's all being swept away, I can't help but mourn. 

I lived almost a year of my life here, with my kind landlady who referred to herself as more of a roommate. I saw my aunt all the time, who I hadn't prior seen in years. I met people at these different gyms and at vegan food swaps. I earned honest money pet sitting, house sitting, and even some chicken sitting. I got to know lots of people and their pets. I wandered all over Germantown and Mt Airy, with the occasional trip to center city. I'm going to miss H-Mart. I'm going to miss all of it, all gone in a moment. Again and a-fucking-gain.

I have an apartment in Burlington now. I'm leaving Philly tomorrow. I get to try to reconnect with my old life. I don't know how that will go. I don't know how much ground I've lost or gained, physically and mentally. I feel very damaged. In addition to grieving for everyone and everything I'm saying goodbye to, I'm full of fears about what traumas my new life will bring, as once more, I'm thrust into the unknown.

People ask me if I'm excited to be going back to Vermont. I've been here a long time. I don't know what I'm going back to anymore. Maybe things will go well. It's theoretically possible. I can't stop crying, but I'm no longer suicidal, and that's no small thing.

transitions

Among so many fears, I was concerned that even under much better circumstances, this plan of moving and then moving again was going to be rough. As much as I've wanted to get back to Vermont, I've now lived almost a year of my life here.  I've had all these strange and new experiences and interactions. There is a lot here I might have appreciated more, had it not been under such duress. There is a lot I will miss. 

This sounds like simple sentimentalism. Bittersweet, but hardly the end of the world. More like the end of one world and the beginning of yet another. I struggle with transitions, and moving like this is a massive one. My whole life is about the be completely different again. I have all kinds of work to do, getting it back together. I will be in a very different neighborhood than I was before, let alone where I am now. I will have to learn to adapt to everything, including adapting to the reality of things I'll fail to adapt to. I don't know how it's all going to go, but I'm hopeful.

My room here is already rented out to another needy soul as of the day after tomorrow. The day after that, I'll be meeting my new landlord in Burlington.