Neuro-typical

If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be, and why?

I would like to be a neuro-typical person. Someone who can face the ups and downs of life without being either over the moon or 20,000 leagues under the sea.

Someone who can have totally normal conversation with a fellow soccer mom without obsessing for hours over whether or not she thought it was weird when I said that one thing.

Someone who can have an argument with her husband without spiraling into emotional turmoil. I wish any complaint he might have wasn’t a stake through my heart, leaving me convinced that he is going to leave, and the world will consequently end. Sorry peeps, you probably weren’t aware that the fate of our planet will actually be determined by the state of my marriage.

Maybe if I was neuro-typical a simple text message from my mother wouldn’t send me into a tailspin trying to read between the lines. It wouldn’t get me stuck in a loop trying to determine which parts of my childhood were true, and which ones were made up, because you can’t trust anything, not even your own memory.

Most likely, if my brain functioned according to its purpose I wouldn’t spin around in circles because the kitchen exhaust fan is running at the same time as music is playing

If my mind could be talked down from its ledge, I wouldn’t badger my children every time they came home from the babysitter, a sleepover or soccer camp, to be sure that no one touched them inappropriately. “But most kids don’t tell!” My neuro-divergent mind tells me the only way I can keep my family safe is to stay hyper vigilant.

Perhaps if all my synapses operated according to design, I wouldn’t schedule an appointment two hours in the future, and still forget about it. I wouldn’t forget my wallet 10% of the time I leave the house; ApplePay has become the most useful of Little Victories. I might not go to the grocery store for one specific item, but instead leave with something else entirely unrelated. You cannot substitute chips and salsa for vanilla extract in my cookie recipe.

The 3 pound organ in my head, smart enough to keep me breathing, walking upright and give me a remarkable talent for word puzzles, has no knack for executive functioning and still cannot tell imminent danger from mild upset.

It would be nice if it could.