materials and designs, which is where everyone says I get my love of textures and colours from… But I’m not sure it works that way. Where do I get my anxiety from? Who gave me that?
Joe tidies his books away and asks if I want to go to a film on Saturday, but I can’t because Dad is coming to visit on Saturday, but I’m glad I can’t go because the truth is cinemas are very difficult places for me. I wait for films to come out on Netflix or the internet and anyway I need to watch some Skylar on YouTube.
Mum comes into the kitchen after Joe leaves and points to the stain on my white shirt.
“What’s that?” I go to the sink and scrub at the stain.
“Joe flicked a pea at me.” Mum’s eyes go big and wide and she sidles across the kitchen floor to me.
“OHHHHH, somebody likes you, M,” she says. “He’d be a perfect son-in-law, M! He’s so polite!”
“Mum, are you suggesting that I marry Joe?”
“Oh, M! You could wear white and I’ve always thought Rose Vale House would be a perfect wedding venue!
“Are you teasing me?” I ask. A car passes on the road outside and the neighbours shut their front door, they walk up the front path, click-click – click-click on the concrete and in my head. I tap my face with my fingers and I sense The Beast of Anxiety in the room. Its eyes lock on me. Mum says she’s sorry and she explains that she wasn’t teasing me, she was dreaming of a happy future for me. I tap more.
“A future? When in the future? What time Mum? When?!!!” She’s planning events, and a wedding at Rose Vale House is unfolding in front of me at a very high speed. The future is a frightening place.
“Stop it, M, please!” And I tap more and I walk towards the stairs.
“Stop what? Mum, exactly what should I stop? What have I done?” The Beast of Anxiety, eyes still locked on me, paces around the room.
“Stop getting stressed out. Please. I was just thinking about the future, when you’re grown up… I was dreaming, M. It’s just what mums do! Dream. I shouldn’t have said anything…”
“I need to change my shirt, the smell of the pea is making me nauseous.”
“It’s just you seemed really on track M, in life. I was just joking around. I thought maybe I could. Did I push it too far M? I did, I pushed it too far, didn’t I?”
“Shouldn’t you be in love with the person you marry?” I ask.
“Yes, darling, most definitely,” she answers.
“I don’t love Joe.”
“Well, that’s very sensible of you, M, and I was just being silly.”
I escape up the stairs to the safety of my little pink room and avoid a full-on assault from anxiety. I was spared this evening but I know it’s still hanging around, waiting for its next opportunity. Ever present. I get into bed and wrap myself tightly in the purple and grey blanket my mum made me and I think about how I love Lynx. I should marry Lynx…
I’m supposed to be in a pack but I haven’t found it yet.
Friend
[noun]
A person you like a lot. Not usually a member of your family.
She’s my best/oldest/closest friend – we’ve known each other since we were five.
He’s a family friend/friend of the family.
My friend enquired how my holiday was.
Shaznia has been my friend at school and out of school too. We’d met up over the holidays and some Saturdays too.
And this is not easy for me.
I have to plan and need notice to prepare myself and to choose my clothes, organise my travel arrangements, and when these are in place I can meet my best friend! Yay! (I’m not sure she’s actually a best friend. I would like that but…)
We’ve been over to each other’s houses too. Shaznia lives at 67 Bluecoat Lane, Sevenoaks, Kent and it’s not easy for me to go there but I make the effort to visit her home, with smells, colours and shapes very different to mine. And of course Anxiety always comes along too. Dragging out of me… And I try to shake it off or prise out its claws that dig and cut into me and I try to ignore it because you see, when you have a friend, you do things to keep the friendship going. You have to make an effort and nurture it, as it explains in the feature “How To Tell If She’s A Real Friend,” Cherry Magazine, The Friendship Special.
Sometimes your friend will want to go swimming and sometimes you’ll want to go drink caramel café lattes at the local coffee shop! But remember, make the effort to do things she loves too! Nurture that friendship and watch it blossom!
I never talk about having autism with Shaznia. I’m not ashamed of it…but sometimes I am… Often her aunt is in her kitchen and says things like, “Is she the little one with the criminal’s disease?” Shaznia and her mum tell her to be quiet and of course I don’t have a criminal disease, I know this. But sometimes I catch a flicker, a flash, a change cross Shaznia’s face and I worry that it’s doubt or fear about our friendship, so I try to make small talk to make her feel better. I say,
“Shaznia, I’m enquiring about your holiday and how it was?” Like it says in the dictionary, and her aunt will see I am a good friend, not a criminal.
But her aunt BANGED the table and laughed and her mum says,
“M, that’s very sweet of you to ask. Our last holiday was in the Lake District and we had a very enjoyable time. You girls go upstairs and I’ll bring you some lemonade.”
I don’t like Shaznia’s aunt one bit but I don’t say anything to my mum in case she stops me seeing Shaznia. However, I try not to go to her house that much or I ask if she’ll be there and Shaznia says “yes” and “sorry” and that she feels bad about her aunt. It’s nice that Shaznia cares. Also, we have “lots in common.” Another definition in “How To Tell If She’s A Real Friend.” We both love clothes! We love trying on combinations of shoes, skirts, jewellery, socks, bags, etc… She really listens to my advice about what to wear and how to apply make-up and I really like this. It makes me feel really good about myself.
I understand colours and textures and shapes much more than other girls my age do and I can match shoes and nail polish and all the little details that really bring an outfit to life!
I also copy Skylar, The All-American Girl. Pop star and icon for the 21st century. She always looks so beautiful and is so popular and often has an American twist to some of her outfits like the Star Spangled Banner skirt she wore in season 7, episode 15 in which she visits the American President and discovers that the White House domestic supervisor (we would call him a cleaner) is a spy for another presidential candidate, Newton Layburn Senior. Skylar uncovers this “threat to democracy” and ends up performing on the 5th of July, in Capitol Hill,
