When my mom asked me how I felt about creating this list, I told her that it made me feel “incrementally more powerful”.
Category: Emotions
Me, Not You
This is a short essay that was part of an assignment in my online course, Grammar & Composition, which I’m taking via the Virtual Access Academy, a program within the Optimal Access non-profit organization. Getting lost in my head is something I struggle with every single day. I am autistic, meaning that my habits, communication,…
The Q&A Essay
This was an idea my mom had, since I was always writing about the same things, and people were probably getting bored. She asked people on Facebook to ask me any question they had for me. My dad and my sister also asked a few questions. I then picked which ones I felt like answering….
Learning to Spell: Piecing Myself Together
The year spent working on the letterboard with my mom has been the best year of my life. I have allowed myself to be known. I have also gotten to know my mother as well. Before this journey began, I was locked up inside my head, looking for a way to show the world I…
Helping My Mother Die
Yup. I’m going there. And nope, this post has nothing to do with autism. Also, this post is definitely going to be a bummer. Here we go… When my mother suggested that I write an essay titled “Watching My Mother Kick the Bucket”, I confessed to her that the idea–if not the title–had already occurred…
I’m fine. How are you?
I’ve taken a break from posting on Facebook lately. It’s only been 12 days, and I did not put my hand to my forehead and share a vague and ominous status update about why I need to step away, so maybe no one has noticed. I did so after experiencing a particularly sharp emotional meltdown…
His Mouth
On some nights, as my daughter watches her pre-bed TV downstairs in our living room with my husband, I opt for putting my son to sleep in our bed, rather than lying with him in the darkness of his. I dim the sconce lights low on either side of our bed, and get some work…
Dear Woman at the Park
I was informed this morning by my husband that another mother in our neighborhood – even though she had never met me or even communicated with me via email – did not consider hiring me as a photographer because she thinks I’m “so negative”. What follows is a lengthy explanation of who I am, if…
Love is Complicated
A friend once asked me – and she was asking this as a long-time friend who knew that I trusted her, and with whom I shared a 100% honesty rule – if I loved my son less than my daughter because he is autistic. I considered the question seriously. After all, this was a friend…
What I Imagine He Sounds Like
Last night I dreamed that my son could speak. The details are fuzzy. But I do remember that it was not some miraculous binary shift; he did not start uttering amazingly long, eloquent phrases, a fact which made the whole thing seem that much more real. But he did tell me what he wanted. And…