Looking back.... growing up, there were certain things that I knew for sure about myself.
I loved creating Art.
I loved Nature and Animals.
I loved Reading and Writing Stories.
I loved Music.
I loved learning about God.
I didn't love tags in my clothes.
I didn't love routine disruption.
I didn't love loud or raucous environments.
When I got around other people, I would tend to lose all that. I would copy, mimic, study... and change. Blend in. Become them. I don't think I ever had a conscious thought about it.
The older I got, the more I learned to camouflage. Look like those around me. Especially when the time came when the cliques were established and I became more an outsider. I still never had a conscious thought about it.
I wanted to badly to be like the girls that were confident, liked, and secure in themselves.
I never understood why I felt so different. Literally like an alien. I would study them and could not figure it out.
What made me so different? Why did I lose myself the minute I was around others?
By the time high school came around, I was lost. The minute I hooked up with a troublemaker, my decent to the pit began. Miserable with the environment I had placed myself in, I surrendered to addictions to cope with the life I had created, rather than create a new one.
Miraculously, I escaped from that miserable existence after a decade and began the very slow journey of finding myself.
I thought that journey was over in my 40s. Living a completely opposite life from my 20s.
Then came the BEFORE AND AFTER chasm in my life - an Autism Diagnosis - that came suddenly, unsolicited, but oh-so-unexpectedly joyous.
THE MISSING PIECE.
So, here I am on the cusp of 50, finally, stepping into myself. Seeing a glimpse of my true identity, now that I know what I didn't before.
And guess what?
I am an Artist.
I am a Nature Lover.
I am a Writer.
I am a Music Lover.
I am a Christian.
I am Sensory Avoidant (yet seeking).
And now...
I am a Mother.
I am a Wife.
I am Autistic.
-RK