Autism & The Myth of Independence

I knew this morning was going to be busy.  

This should have worried me.  When I'm busy, I'm the sort of person who falls going upstairs, stabs myself with my own bra and forgets what I'm saying mid-sentence.  

Despite this, I remain an optimistic idiot.  I'm like a human golden retriever, only with half as much legs, marginally better breath, and about the same amount of hair.

My Busy Morning unfolded as expected.

First, my own saliva tried to murder me by going down the wrong way.   This is not the sexiest way to expire.  I'd like to imagine I'll die of a fabulous Victorian wasting disease, or from eating too much Belgian chocolate off Brad Pitt's belly.  Choking on my own spit was never on my Sexy Death list.  Not a cool start to my day.

I survived this near-death experience, but immediately kinda wished I hadn't; the heel of my favourite boots broke.  

Whoever wrote The Book of Revelations neglected to mention the real reason the horsemen of the apocalypse were in such a bad mood; those headless bad-boys woke up one day to engage in some light-hearted hellraising, but discovered they had knackered shoes.  This pushed them over the edge from being a little bit grumpy to unleashing war and pestilence upon all humankind.  

I totally get this. 

Bad shoes and Armageddon make obvious bedfellows.  They certainly did in my hallway this morning.

Finally, I caught my hair in the car door.  This trick required a dextrous combination of skill and timing, so I'm actually more than a little proud of pulling this one off.  Yeah my scalp hurt, but it's nice to know I could cut it as a circus act if the whole wife and mother gig doesn't work out.

If anyone had been watching other than Finian, I might have been a little embarrassed. He was utterly unmoved by my lapses from grace, though.  His need to be accepted by the crowd reposes peacefully in a dreamy, distant landfill.

I envied his utter lack of concern with appearing cool.  He didn't feel harassed by the urge to fit in.  I briefly felt jealous of his independence.

Even though I'm quick to trip across my own knickers, I'm slow to process ideas.  The notion of independence, and what it really means, stewed slowly beneath my busyness.  As the day wore on, I began to question the degree of nobility we ascribe to being independent.

Really, the whole notion of independence is kinda crap.  

Independence is a fake aspiration created by capitalism and the breakdown of our natural, tribal co-existence. 

It's sold hard by the western culture.  We are applauded for not needing anyone, for being utterly self-reliant and for disdaining inter-dependence.  

We have been told for decades, maybe centuries, that we want it..... so like good little consumers we believe we want it.

The truth is the we do need each other, though.  We are pack animals, and attempting to live as independent entities is making us sick, personally and collectively.  Independence is a myth we buy into.

Unless you're Finian, that is, and independence means not being embarrassed by a mother who farts when she sneezes.  

It seems independence is a subjective notion.  I hope they never let me write a book about it.

"we shoulda got Jimmy Choo's"