Autistic Story, Post Three

I am going to continue Chris’s story through this post, which was intended for my second post for this week.

I sat down in band class, watching the my chattering classmates.  Placing the elongated trumpet case on my lap I opened it and began to clean out the valves.  I found myself wondering: what would the world be like if more people were like me?  Would more things get done?  Would greater emphasis be placed on pursuing self interest rather than trying to flock together, to be the most popular?

My trumpet was simple to put together.  Don’t get it confused with a cornet.  It is true that they have a lot in common, but cornets are smaller than trumpets.  And besides, trumpets are better.

I had Ms. Cambridge’s band class second hour, which was right before Mr. Ike’s statistics class.  I like band better than statistics because there is less talking and more devotion to a single task.  In this case, we are busy preparing for our Spring Concert.  

I haven’t always liked band as I do now.  A few years ago, back in middle school, I really wanted to quit.  All I cared about at that time was making first chair.  I didn’t think that I stood a chance, since I have autism.   When I started high school, I also started marching band.  In marching band, I found a level of acceptance that I had never found before from my classmates.  

 I don’t talk to them as much as I feel like I should, but at least I have people I can talk to now.  I never thought I would meet someone who understood what it was like to feel panicked and crazed if my favorite show was interrupted.  I certainly didn’t find that back in middle school.

While writing this post, I tried to give an impression of how I felt joining the marching band and continuing playing my instrument in high school.  The difference in this case is I play the clarinet rather than the trumpet.  While I know a little bit about the trumpet, I couldn’t make a sound out of it when someone let me try one time in high school.  And that was not through lack of trying.

Another point I wanted to make in this post is that, while autism is a big part of the life of someone on the spectrum, people with autism are more complicated than that.  There are spans of time when I am so busy with school and work that I hardly think about my autism at all.  I just carry out the motions necessary to live my life and don’t give it a second thought.