Keep On the Sunny Side

      Ive always heard people say that nothing is more important than a first impression. Despite the fact that those very same people say to never judge a book by its cover, I always found validity in their argument for the importance of displaying your entire self identity with a smile and a sweater vest. With the hands of fatherhood firmly around my throat and thirty lingering just over the next hill, I believe it's time to reinvent myself (more for first impressions and less for vanity mind you). Reinvention, however, leads to the question: how will you display the new you ? A new sweater vest perhaps? But before you display the new you, you must first figure out exactly who the new you is. This may be a pretty daunting task considering you spent nearly thirty years as the old you and barely scratched the surface as to who that guy was.
      So before deciding on a sweater vest, I ask myself the question, who am I? I guess right now I would answer that I am the father of an autistic child. But all that answer does is raise more questions like: what school of thought do you belong to concerning the origins of autism; or do you consider autism a disease or a disorder? I would dodge those questions by elaborating on my first answer; I am  the happy father of a very happy autistic child. That's not to say, however, that I or my child don't succumb to the occasional violent outburst or temper tantrum. Blame it on exhaustion. Blame it on boredom. Blame it on vaccines filled with mercury if you'd like, but know that a couple of clouds in the sky hardly make for an overcast day. And that is in no way downplaying the very real hardships that people go through who have it much worse than us.
      There are those in the autistic community who focus most of their efforts on causation and the pursuit of a cure. I do not distance myself from them for that reason alone. At times, I feel like they do. I feel that finding a prevention for what manifests itself as strife and hardship for so many could improve the well being of generations to come. I know that the attributes my son demonstrates that I shrug off are magnified a hundred times over for the "severely afflicted". I also know in my heart that my son is not the problem and other ASD people are not the problem. A society unwilling to accept these people is the problem. Im not sure that all ASD parents understand this. Your child is not a curse. Your child is not divine punishment because you use to laugh at the kids who rode the short bus. That is both assanine and self centered thinking. Your child is a gift. This is why the role of pity-party-host does not reasonably elaborate on my original answer. Like I said before, I am happy.
    There are others in the autistic community, however few they may be, who believe that autism is not a cancer to be isolated and removed but a difference to be accepted, much the way we accept homosexuals (except in the South). It should be no surprise then that this answer strikes me as correct more than the last. It does not reflect the way I feel at all times. The world at large may call me  a proponent of neurodiversity, but my son just calls me daddy. So while the way I feel towards autism may change, the way I feel towards my son does not: proud. To answer the question then, the new me will not be displayed by a new haircut or a new set of glasses. I will not redefine myself by buying a motorcycle or wearing short pants. I will display the new me by leaving embarrassment where it belongs: dying on the floor, suffering from multiple stab wounds and coughing up blood. I won't bat an eye when folks stare at the supermarket because they think Luke's a spoiled kid. I won't get upset over squeals or flapping. I do not have a problem with that type of behavior, society does. Let them worry about it then. I will love my son. I will love him loud and obnoxiously. He is my sweater vest, now.