Being the "weird girl"

The image of a "weird girl" is surely put down in any number of places with any number of definitions. Horse loving, introverted, band geek, reading too much, spending too much time alone, only talking to animals, the list goes on and on, and could for millennia. It seems like the definition, doesn't exist, yet it belongs in our collective lexicon as though it were in Websters for half a century.

I was a weird girl, seemingly from infancy. Some of my earliest memories are of my obsession with counting my My Little Ponies, reading Michael Crichton novels in second grade, and mummifying a chicken for my Gifted class. Super cool girl right there. I also remember my atrocious fashion, my inability to play any sports and let's just say I rounded out elementary in super fun, antisocial fashion.

Things sort of got better from there. In high school, I found some other mutants at table nine to hang out with and had a small, but good circle of friends. Its probably because high school is such a rebellious season of life, that we end up finding some acceptance for the things we are, but still, more times than not, I felt like the outsider.

 

College, well it was still better, but only because I went to a college run by mutants at table nine, and my love of discussing the finer points of Agnes Martin found good company. It was truly one of those magical places that you can't put into words that finds a way of defining you. Among the walls scrawled with glorious graffiti reading "Fuck gouache" and "Roast beef curtains", there was something in that space that allowed a person to thrive, and I still can't put it into words.


What all does this have to do with my daughter?

Thoughts are tangential this way, aren't they? Coming from this, that and the other direction until they make some seemingly obscure sense to our minds.

I was laying in a hot bath today, four in the afternoon. Around me I was listening to a Sofia Coppola soundtrack on vinyl, with a bath bomb claiming to never test on animals and a copy of W magazine a few months old when it hit me. I am still the weird girl, and while I've found some contentment with who I am, how can I be certain she will find it too?

Many of my peers and I are now learning due to any number of factors, that a good portion of "weird girls" actually have autism and were never screened properly for it. Being weird kind of falls into spectrum disorders for females, and it seems like certain things congregate this together for women in the 30-40 age group.

We are learning that our own maladaptive behaviors are actually medically based, and there were any number of reasons for our "weirdness" and for the things that define us. Autism.

So how can I raise a girl, who knows she has autism, and is proud of who she is?

I think back to my time in college, and the environment that allowed that to thrive. It was small, a few hundred in the entire school, and very open concept. We had work to complete, but it was open ended, and allowed for interpretation. We were graded harshly, one famous professor never gave As, because "Ain't nothin' perfect." and TC, lord knows I didn't ever deserve an A from you.



But it had structure in all the right ways, in the ways that pushed you beyond what you thought capable. It was your own self you were pushing against, to find the possibilities within you. Studio doors were always open, seniors didn't mind if freshmen wandered into their studio space at three am to share a beer. It was a beautiful, open collective where the sense of one's self was truly nourished.

I think about that a lot, and in the way I want our daughter to be raised. She's brilliant, but also disabled, and that's a fragile precipice to sit on. Always uncertain and never knowing, but still wanting to trust that intuition that burns so strongly. I get it, because it was me too.

So for now, our home is full of life, full of things that make us happy. We embrace her ideas that fill her with enthusiasm, and nudge her otherwise when she needs it. Our home is full of character, art, music and any number of other weird thing, because we are weird, all three of us, and it is a beautiful and genuine place to be, that so many are never brave enough to find.




-For the record, TC was a great man, and you should read about him.