The Road Not Taken.

I literally stumbled onto the perfect analogy for Asperger's and Autism while I was running today.

Unsurprisingly, running on (human) trails is harder than running on pavement. There are rocks and roots you can trip on, it's wet, has random hills and valleys, and there's really no telling where it leads next, unless you've traveled it before.

Well, that's like most of life for me.

Neurotypicals run on paved areas. Ones that they know are safe, because others have done it. And often, there are other people that travel with them-- so they don't feel lonely, and so they lend each other a helping hand.

That's not what life is like for me. I wake up every morning having pretty much no idea what the day will be like. It could be fairly easy, or it could be uphill all the way.

And no one else really travels with me-- no one else has made the exact same journey. There might be people along the way who have similar experiences, maybe even every now and then someone who has very similar experiences, but no one can tell me where to go. When I reach a fork in the road, I just have to guess. I might have clues to help me, or I might not. It's a crapshoot.

Okay, yeah, some of that is just LIFE. But it's a lot harder for me, because of the Asperger's.

What's amazing is, there are actually harder ways to get around-- following animal trails, or even no trail at all. And that's what life must be like for lower-functioning people on the Spectrum. My heart goes out to them for that.

However, there is something that makes some of the blood, sweat, and tears worthwhile. Maybe you've heard this before:

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 

Robert Frost


Lately, I've been finding out that people like me. That they think I'm interesting. And I think that this is why: I took the road less traveled by. (Hee, it rhymes. I should write a poem about it someday.) I have unusual thoughts and opinions, and I think people are drawn to that. (Plus, some people think I'm just rebellious, deliberately defying the rules instead of not knowing them.)

Plus, I've been through a hell of a lot, and I've always worked hard. Much harder than most people think. So when I hit paved road (what I'm good at), after traveling trails most of the time, I take off like a fucking bullet!

So maybe it's not so bad, in the end. Things have begun to balance out, finally.

And that makes all the difference.

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The Road Not Taken (c) Robert Frost. The rest of the blog post (c) Ilsa Kasmar.