I imagine myself standing along the side, watching the two ropes swing, hearing the machine-like tap-tap-tap-tap-tap against the hard ground. I wait for just the right moment, try to time it because I know, once I jump in, the Double Dutch doesn’t stop, and I need to be ready.
To this point, I’ve been afraid to jump.
A regular publishing schedule—whether for a blog or newsletter like this, or for a podcast, or a TikTok account—was intimidating, still is. That type of pressure for consistency, and that accountability for failing to follow through really petrified me for a long time. And, on top of that, I hate how much energy it takes for me to be “on” in the moment of recording a podcast or video because it wipes me out for the whole day.
I’ve balked in the past because I know myself pretty well—at least, as much as I think anyone can ever know themselves. Sometimes, even against my best intentions and preparations, I can go from hitting a strong wind to feeling adrift quickly, without warning.
[After years of repeatedly hustling and burning out, hustling and burning out, I’ve learned that’s not uncommon for autistic people: we get so drained trying to override our brains, ignore their signals, and live in a neurotypical world that the endless cycle continues.]
I was worried about building an audience, feeling a tremendous responsibility to their time and attention and interest, only to burn out and let them down.
Thankfully, over this past year (as I’ve written about in “Curtain Call”), I’ve figured out ways to listen to my brain and maintain my balance to avoid that continuous burnout cycle. I feel stronger, more in control, and more committed to sharing my story, hoping to help even one other person to see themselves in my journey and chart their own authentic path through this life.
How do I know I’m not going to burnout this time?
A fair question, especially having read to this point and wondered if this was worth investing your time and attention towards if it’ll only end with a fizzle.
What has carried me throughout this personal growth journey I’ve embarked on has been to sit down—first at my 1965 baby blue Olivetti Lettera 22 typewriter, now at my laptop—and journal and write through what’s going on. It’s the guiding light that always carries me through, both towards safety in the dark moments and to savor the warm sunshine on the calmer seas.
That’s how I know. Even if things get tough or I go through other rough seasons of my life, as I surely will, as we surely all do, I know that I’ll sit down to write, to quote Joan Didion, “to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see, and what it means.”
At the end of “Curtain Call,” I wrote that moment, one week before my 26th birthday, was not the end of my journey:
“I am, just as we all are, never-ending works-in-progress, masterpieces that are continuously accumulating brush strokes, taking on new shapes and colors, finding new depths of meaning and expression. I find out more and more about myself with each passing day, and I don’t think that will stop until I have no more passing days left.”
I want to share those lessons learned, those observations and revelations, those new brush strokes as they’re added.
One lesson I’ve learned so far along this journey is that the fear never goes away. You just learn to navigate it and become more comfortable being uncomfortable.
So, here I am, jumping. Come along for the ride, won’t you?
[I’ve included either playlists or songs or YouTube videos or quotes in previous pieces I’ve written, I think just because that’s how my mind works. I listen to music nearly all day, every day, to help regulate my mood, to help me focus, to help guide the emotions that need to come out but have a harder time finding their way on their own. And, maybe either as an extension of that or as a result of constantly consuming that much material, my mind makes associations between pieces that I write and songs or albums or videos I’ve seen and the emotions they energize. I want to include that here with these letters, so look out for them here at the bottom of each note.]
When all the dark clouds roll away/
And the sun begins to shine/
I see my freedom from across the way/
And it comes right in on time/
Well it shines so bright and it give so much light/
And it comes from the sky above/
Makes me feel so free/
Makes me feel like me/
And lights my life with love/