Life Experiences & Observations

Do you ever have a few days in your life where a theme runs through and connects much of what you are experiencing together? Right now I am experiencing that with an autism theme. Nobody in my family is directly impacted by autism but my daughter has other special needs and often displays various autistic tendencies. We also know many children with autism as a result of many of the activities my daughter Sophia participates in. It started late Friday night when I was looking for a movie to watch on Amazon Prime. It is not uncommon for me to watch movies late on Friday night in preparation for my 3 X 12 graveyard shift that starts Saturday night. Staying up Friday night helps me to get prepared for the week ahead.

Well it turns out, I came across and decided to watch the movie Temple Grandin. Coincidentally, it was also National Autism Awareness day. Ok, one connection… not that surprising. After watching the movie and being drawn in like worm in quicksand, I decided to watch some video interviews with Temple on YouTube. Well much of the content she expressed really hit home for me as it relates to my special needs daughter Sophia. She was talking about the need to focus on an individual’s strengths and not focusing on the weaknesses. Specifically she called upon parents of autistic children, which I expanded to special needs, to broaden the fixation out. This was in reference to many of the fixations I have seen from children with special needs. My daughter, being one person, who also displays them. By doing this, a parent could ultimately find the best career for their special needs child. Hopefully, this would allow the individual to find a way to connect with the world through work and life. Temple also discussed the different types of thinkers. She is a visual thinker but she also discussed word thinkers and explained it as those who are focused on all the words associated with all the things they are interested in. This basically hit the nail on the head in describing Sophia.

Fast forward to this evening. I happen to get on Periscope to watch a singer that I follow named Clare Means. In turn, she was also discussing a band that she will be playing with in Seattle by the name of Xolie Morra and the Strange Kind. I looked them up and really liked their music. Miraculously, Xolie has Asperger’s syndrome which is a mild form of autism. Is the connection complete or will additional connections continue over the next few days? Only time will tell. I know this is most likely just random occurrences connecting together. And my mind is probably gluing them together, even further, to make it feel magical. Either way, I found these connections both fascinating and inspiring.