For I am human #autism

 

For I am human.  (A radical statement to some.) 

And I am capable of every human emotion.

Even as I wake some days I am surprised to find this as truth. For I am othered in the collective consciousness which envelops us all.

I have for all of my years, until the last, swallowed my othering whole, so that I did not know myself as myself at all.

Confronted with myself – I found myself a stranger all the more.

But as time eeks out its knowingness I no longer falter, for I find that I am myself (of course I am) and always was that self buried under a false persona.

Stepping out from under it was like tearing off my shadow.

A false persona melded onto a true heart? Yes – I think so. Yes.

A not unsmall quake of tectonic plates.

Now settling. Becoming.

All humans wear a social mask.

All humans tire of one another.

All humans seek solitude.

My humanness is not other – it is a parallelogram of your humanness.

A mirror in which to see yourself (at times).

A mirror which defines our also separations (like a walk or a swim).

Don’t be shocked or surprised.

(And I say to parents.

My existence doesn’t threaten your child, or replace their value.)

I am both mother and babe.

And there is space for all of us.

For we are human.