Reminiscence(1)

Ever since junior high, I haven't had fun. When the world wanted me to change with it, I just pretended to ignore it and stayed the same. Doing this has hurt a few people who inserted themselves into my life. Ever since then, who I can call genuine friends has stayed mainly to just one person.

I used to be very friendly and outgoing, or so I am told. As I already stated, I think I haven't changed. It isn't my fault that everyone else decided to change around me, but I sound like a spoiled brat putting it that way. The one constant in my life who hasn't changed was Jenna. I guess I should explain why I am so pessimistic.

When I was 13 years old, I was diagnosed with Asperger's and extreme social anxiety, in other words, high-functioning Autism. This made me lose friends as well as become something of a joke to other people.

My family was loving, there were no issue, we ate dinner together everyday, my parents stayed loving each other for over 30 years, we were not poor. Yet all of this and I still felt like I was suffocating in that house. As I grew up, so did my sisters, and as they grew up, they got more and more attention from my family. I am sure it wasn't intentional, my parents still text me with vague Are you good?  texts every now and again. Since I am the easy child, I have been independent since entering high school, I wonder if my family knew what I am constantly thinking if I would still be the easy child.

Where I saw the world start to leave me behind first was in my family life. They soon started talking about stuff I did not understand, even still to this day I do not understand. What is wrong with me?

I soon found myself staying away from my family, constantly holed up in my room reading and ignoring the world around me. Books have always been my safe space, when the world was too much to handle, I would shut out everything and just read until my eyes would shut with exhaustion. It is really ironic, while I do not understand most emotions, my favorite genres were always the dramatic teenage romances. Not just in books either, most of the time if I was consuming a piece of entertainment, it would have something related to romance.

The one thing that has always bothered me though was that even though I love romantic stories, I could never relate. Sometimes they had characters like me, ones who never felt any emotion related to love, but never do they stay like that. So when should my story deviate to this direction? When should I expect this development to happen in my life?

If I had to guess why I love romance stories so much, it would be because I get an insight to something I never felt. There are so many ways people can fall in love, and I absolutely adore that part of the medium. This is mainly just my observation, I have read thousands of books, watched hundreds of romance movies watched hundreds of romantic shows and series. All this experience from so many different perspectives and I still do not understand it.

It is not that I am dumb, far from it. I have always been in the advanced classes, I got into my university on a full ride scholarship, I was the only valedictorian in my graduating class. When it comes to academics, I have been told I am beyond gifted. This is in stark contrast with my lack of tact, common sense and overall what differentiates a human with emotions to a robot.

As I get older, the more I realize I am not the main character of my own story. I do not think anyone around me could be considered the main character of my story since none of them last long enough, other than Jenna. The world doesn't revolve around me, nor do I think I revolve around someone else's world. I am very bad at picking up social cues though, so who knows if this is all true.

I never want to let my shortcomings define who I am, I never want to be known as the autistic girl who unintentionally hurts everyone around her. I guess the one positive thing to come out of this is that people ask for my opinion on various subjects. I think it's because they assume I will just say the first thing that came to my mind, or this is what I think the best case scenario is.

I want to be able to fall in love, I want to be able to experience all these emotions so many characters have experienced. I want to have these deep discussions with friends about who we love. I want people to ask my opinion not because I am honest but because they simply want to know what I think...

I simply want to be a normal human girl...

Here is the beginning of my spiral down this path...