There was a button I was supposed to use if I needed the nurse. I had to reach above my head to push it. Some time late during that long night, close to morning, I felt another wave of nausea start to crest and I was simply too tired and disgusted to follow the procedure. Lying there on my back, I let the wave break. Vomit surged out of my mouth and fell back on me, sliding down both sides of my face and streaking my hair. I reached up with my right hand and pushed the button. Next thing I remember, I had an unattractive nurse at each side of me, sponging my face and hair and clucking. “Disgusting girl!” “You should be ashamed of yourself!” “Look at the mess you made!” I don’t think I said a word. I hope I didn’t say a word. I wasn’t sorry. I’m not sorry now.

Daylight came at last. I was put in a wheelchair for the final ride back to where I’d left my parents. They had looks of love and concern on their faces and a new ballerina doll in their hands. I never did like that doll.

***

So what do you think? I told that story to a good child psychologist once and she said, “Shit, if I were trying to write a prescription for how to make a child autistic, I don’t think I could have done better than that. It’s a miracle you survived.” But it wasn’t a miracle. From where I stood, there was never any doubt. For the truth was, I already had a rock-solid personality. It wasn’t going to retreat into the realm of nonresponsiveness. Instead, what I did was decide, then and there and once and for all, that I and only I was going to be in charge of me. Grownups do not necessarily know what is best. In fact, many of them are too stupid or inattentive or forgetful to be good guides.

I assumed control and responsibility for my life then. That’s what made it natural for me to cut the second day of kindergarten, and go next door where the class seemed more interesting. That’s what made it obvious for me to always wonder why so many students would consistently obey one not-even-very-tall teacher. To marvel, in fact, that you two will listen to me.

That’s what made me an information junkie! JSYK. All I ever want is word about what’s coming, so I can prepare myself or amend my schedule. JSYK, my children say to me as others would clear their throats. Just so you know…

But what made five-and-a-half year old me select responsibility over autism? Here’s the sweet thing: the very same childish parents who sent me unprepared down the hospital corridor also wrapped me every moment in love and care, childish love even, filled with impatient energy and fun. I think they liked me so much that I just had to like myself.
My parents are Americans. Childish. Rambunctious, impulsive, impatient, mischievous. They’ve always had roll-down-the-slope energy. An obsession about fairness.

It’s complicated, but maybe childishness is good.

See: grownups don’t tell the truth. Not so much because they’re dishonest as because they’re lazy. Mostly we all find adolescence so exhausting that we hang up the effort when we get to twenty-something. We put our questing on the Restoration Hardware hook that’s just inside the front door and we don’t use it and it atrophies. We don’t even often notice it’s gone, because we all contract a benign amnesia and we agree to forget how smart we were as kids.

Children are realists. Kids have the courage of their imaginations. So they’re limited by lack of experience…so what? every adult I know is complicated and imperfect. We’re all accommodating all the time. That’s the dance.

Of course I made mistakes with you. But I always liked and loved you so much that you can’t help but love yourselves. Lucky. Perfectly imperfect. JSYK.

Love,
I

cc: Mom & Dad, with thanks