Between the Lines

 

WORDPLAY

         

An excerpt from Miss Machine: An Aspie's Attempt at a Personal Journey by Ilana Zoya Glisik

 

It’s occurred to me that words occupy a very low position in humanity’s little hierarchy of expression. “Actions speak louder than words“, “A picture is worth a thousand words“, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.“ I often wonder what my mother would have thought of those phrases when she was told I might not be able to speak.

         Honestly, I think it’s all malarkey. I’d challenge anyone who disagrees to spend a day without using words, but that would be impossible, wouldn’t it? And I don’t mean going a day without talking (not that it wouldn’t be beneficial); I’d love to see how a day without thinking would look. We think with words, don’t we? Words are the tools we use to process the world around us. Imagine your head being filled with nothing but vague distaste or disconnected pleasure. Sounds rather boring, if you ask me. Now that I think about it, I believe there’s a certain book about why limiting our vocabulary limits our minds, but right now I’d rather steer my train of thought from other people’s words to my own. God knows I have plenty.

         Wikipedia, which we all know to be a bastion of unbridled, objective accuracy (I’ll let you decide how sarcastic that sentence is on your own), describes Asperger’s syndrome as “A developmental disorder characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction and nonverbal communication, along with restrictive and repetitive patterns of behaviour and interests.“ I wish understanding myself was as easy as reading a Wikipedia article (trust me, I’ve tried).

         A lot of the poems I assume you’re about to read come from a time when I hadn’t the slightest idea of who I was. And, of course, because meeting new people isn’t one of my strong suits, I had a long and bumpy road ahead of me. But don’t uneven paths often have the finest destinations? That is, if you don’t veer off into a ditch and convince yourself that everything is fine, the tow truck will be here soon, I’m sure insurance will cover it, right? I like thinking of my poems as my little bread crumbs along the road, even the ones from the ditch. They’re valid too; they’re just not correct.

         To give you an idea of what not correct means, I’d like to describe how I used to think of my disorder, of my actions, of myself. It might shed some light on the ditch analogy. 

         Obviously, I’ve always known I was different. Odd, strange, weird, whatever word you prefer. But different can mean a lot of things, and I had chosen a terrible way to interpret it. I had let “different“ become this powerful presence that alienated me from everything else. At my worst, I thought of myself as a robot. Not a cool one, mind you, but a prototype of something better: a person. An unfinished mess of wires and commands trying to blend into a society of polished final versions, each difference a “bug“, even the useful things. How absurd is that?

 “It can’t seem to hold eye contact for more than a split second; we should have a look at that.“

 “Hey, do you recall programming it to memorize license plates? Me neither.“

 “Is a minor inconvenience SUPPOSED to make it burst into tears?“

 “Did we make it complete assignments three weeks before the due date?“

 “Check its audio processing chip; it seems to be unable to sepa- rate the sound of a passing car from the voice on the phone.“

 “It writes poems while waiting for the bus, but it can’t do a cart wheel? Is this correct?“

         So everyone else was the ideal I couldn’t live up to. A few years ago I would’ve given anything to “be like everyone else“, without really knowing what that meant. If anyone reading this shares the same wish, I can finally enlighten you on what that mystical “like everyone else“ is: dust. Nothing. Bullshit. Don’t believe me? Here’s how I know: walk up to that friend you’ve felt envious of for being so carefree, so pretty, so funny, so popular, so extroverted, so normal, ask them what they’d like to change about themselves. I’m no fortune cookie, but I GUARANTEE you they won’t reply with “Nothing, I’m perfect.“ If that person you’ve chosen to envy for their xyz envies someone else for THEIR xyz, where does it end? Are we just rats in a maze, looking for some vague idea of normalcy we’ll never reach? We just might be.

         Perfection is poison. It shuts you inside your head and bars the windows, so you’re as blind to everyone around you as you are to yourself. It made me think of my Asperger’s as a personal demon that was preventing me from living the ideal life. I thought I was the only one with a shuffled set of characteristics, but once I climbed out of the ditch, I realized that every person I met was their own imperfect creation. Their own creation, not someone else’s programming error.

         Climbing out of the ditch isn’t easy, though, and it’s a different struggle for each person, with different solutions. I’ll say it again; words are goddamned powerful. For me, words were not only the breadcrumbs of my drive but the hands that helped me grip the rock, the shoes that protected my step and the heart that kept on beating, not to mention the water bottle that kept me hydrated after. 

         If anyone reading this is stuck in their own ditch, I hope my words make at least an inkling of a difference, if only to help you realize you deserve better than a dirty hole on the side of the road. If not, then I at least hope you see a cute dog today, and that tomorrow brings better moments your way.

 

Until tomorrow.