This is something I wrote three years ago — before being diagnosed with autism.
My parents must have feared I would need training wheels on a bicycle into adulthood. I did not have a bike as a child but all my friends did and I was often allowed to take a turn on theirs. But I usually had to borrow a friend’s little brother’s bike — with training wheels. Try as I might, I could not get anywhere on a regular bike. My mother had no sympathy. Said she had learned to ride a bike on one morning. It only took a couple of tries for her to get the hang of it.
At school, children were not allowed to ride a bike to class without first passing something called the Cycling Proficiency Test. In the spring, instructors would come to the school for a series of classes teaching safe bicycling, at the end of which, students were given a field test. My friends brought their bikes to school for the class — and from the confines of the classroom where I did extra schoolwork, I watched with envy as the cycled effortlessly around a training circuit. Why did I find this so hard?
Thankfully, by age twelve I had finally got it which was good because I now needed a bicycle for after-school transportation. I never too the Cycling Proficiency Test and I am sure I would have failed, but my mother persuaded the school to grant me an exemption from the rule, so that I would not have to come home from school to get my bike before riding on to my after-school activity.
I adulthood, I got reasonably comfortable riding a bike for transportation but I would never describe it as fun. My balance is terrible and I am unable to look back over my shoulder without becoming unbalanced. So I usually dismount and wheel the bike across intersections and through situations that need a lot of attention. I would rather walk any day!
I had much difficulty without swimming also. At age sixteen, I was finally able to dog-paddle, but try as I might, I never progressed further. I do not see what is so laughable about dog-paddling. It is the way most four-legged creatures swim — keeping face safely above water. Needless to say, I do not enjoy swimming either. And when I take a ferry, I make sure to know where the life vests are stowed.
Music instruments also confounded me. I did OK on the recorder (everyone does), but violin, guitar and piano were a disaster. I just do not know how one’s fingers can possibly be made to be in the right place at the right time. My friends who rode bikes effortless also made good progress with the music — enough to play in the school orchestra. I was the one who chime in every now and then with the triangle!
I struggled with computer programming. I was in high school at a time when not all schools had computer labs and I found myself at a big disadvantage in my first college programming class. The other students found it boring and complained that the class was too easy and just a joke — while I struggled with the most basic of assignments. Luckily, I had a series of jobs where I was able to learn coding on the job, starting with simple revisions to existing code until, having seen enough examples, I was able to write my own programs from scratch. But they were never elegant or efficient. Later on, the internet helped me make progress, especially when the only academies showed up. And object-oriented programming seemed more intuitive to me. So this has been a happier experience — but I still struggle to get to the next level.
I am also a slow typist. Not a two-finger find’n’poke typist — I have tested at 40wpm and 9600 kph. But in a quiet office I have very intimidated by the rattling keyboards around me. How the heck do people manage to type so darned fast? I have been typing all my life, but I have gained no speed from all the practice.
What else? Drawing. Learning foreign languages. Multi-tasking of any kind. Oh – driving a car!! (I am so glad to not need to do that where I live now.) Knitting, crocheting and crafts in general. I can do simple things — but can never progress to the next level. Any sports that involve balls — throwing, hitting, catching, bouncing, dribbling. Actually, any sport other than just plain running!
Is there anything I have been able to learn easily? Not really. Although I do not feel I had a hard time with mathematics — but not because I fancy I have a talent for it — but more because the vast majority of people struggle with it more than I do.
I am also fairly decent with mechanics, when I have access to the proper tools. I drove an old British sports-car for a few years and was proud to be able to do almost all my own repairs — even big jobs like replacing the rear springs!
Putting jigsaw puzzles together is something I am good at — although I would not break any speed records. But I am patient and tenacious enough to stick with it until it is done. I have always wished this was were a skill I could apply in the workplace — but the world moves too fast for me to keep up.
Perhaps this is why I did eventually manage to build some competence in auto mechanics and computer programming — even if only at a basic level. Both involve figuring out how pieces of a puzzle fit together — and both can require a lot of patience and tenacity to get the job done.
But with other things, bike-riding, swimming, foreign languages, crocheting, etc., it either clicks with practice — or it does not. And for me, I just does not.
Finally — and this is the thing that has the biggest problem — I do not understand the glue that binds most people together. I do not understand the obligation to go home for Christmas or Thanksgiving or whatever. I do not understand birthday celebrations once you have come of age, with the exception of landmark birthdays, e.g. fortieth, fiftieth, or until you are past the age of eighty, by when every year is something of an accomplishment.
I do not understand painful coming-of-age rituals; or family naming conventions for children, such as all boy names beginning with M and all girl names beginning with K; or naming a baby for one of your religion’s gods or prophets; or eldest sons sharing the same first and second names in a succession Jr., III, IV, etc. I also do not understand the fascination with family trees and genealogy — although I do enjoy the TV show Finding Your Roots.
Some people insist it is because I am English and not the product of an immigrant experience. But I do not understand the glue that binds English people together either!
In my late thirties I had a few life-altering experiences that go me interested in reincarnation. And I encountered people who volunteered to give me readings, from which two major ideas emerged:
- Although most people have had many millions of lives, my past lives number just a few dozen
- Most people incarnate in groups, varying in size from a few dozen to several million — but I am a lone soul
Whether either of those ideas is true, one can never know. But my difficulties do make sense in light of them. Each time you learn to ride a bike or play the piano, it comes to you a little more easily. After several thousand lives, it is more a matter of remembering than learning. And when you have been incarnating with the same group of souls for a long sequence of lives, you come to accept their norms as normal without having to think much about them.
I just haven’t had much practice at life!
(I continue to wonder if my flavor of autism is simply an outcome of being a young soul in a complicated modern world.)
Blue Sunsets 