Life with autism

For as long as I can remember and experience, having Asperger's syndrome was a personal challenge that I was facing to accept at certain stages in my life. Beyond learning new things, repeating stuff that I usually say and do in a regular everyday basis, and trying to be as more cognitive and mentally competitive as those that did in a more advanced level, going through those physical and mental experiences, from childhood to adulthood, were as easy but difficult to process. However, having autism and going through everyday life doesn't mean that it would effect my plans to be as successful throughout my current studies in college, a future plan for a career establishment, and enter a doorway to create relationships.

In my artistic side, I am as creative and detail oriented as ever. However, the problems I have been dealing with for the past couple years were that I wasn't as creative in reasoning why I was doing my projects, both personally, academically, and professionally, and express art in an abstract way of creating instead of realistically, figuratively, or any sorts.

Working on projects with clients was as easy, but there were some hard roads that I got me in a tough edge. I present my drafting by creating ideas that I took influence via research or to examine other artists on how they interpret from different meanings. For instance, a student club I joined years ago while I was in community college approached me and asked if I was interested to design their official logo. I accepted their proposal and I had been working on a draft by my sketchbook based on what they wanted me to include for at least one or two months, but a majority of the ideas came from myself because since I know that joining a club had a special meaning as a student, I realized that with the logo it had to be treated as if it were a fraternal or a sorority organization. In other words, the ideas that I thought in my mind in this project was a crest/coat of arms that symbolized something that the group really represents. My first draft on the idea was an asset, but I had received feedback from the group with changing the original ideas and replaced them with something else. So, the group sent one of their members to supervise me in editing the logo's symbols, colors, and banner. The only other part of the logo that is original is the banner that I made by myself. No one thought I could come up with that idea. It gave them a heavy impression when they first saw it and had them displayed on T-shirts. So, being an artist is challenging when it not only comes with what ideas you want to present, but it comes when you want to push the boundaries and make effort into the making as well as being competitive.

Anything that I do is not only through my learning process, but my will to feel what I needed to do before accomplishment and success is taking place. Yet, there is still time to practice what I make in the art process as well as the challenges that my disability has prevented me to do. But, I am better and stronger than this because I have duties and important things to do in my future path and I have been encouraged to do anything possible to make life more easy due to a multitude of passions I have been pursuing. Art, music, history, graphic design, literature, architecture, jewelry, real estate, politics, cooking, accounting, analytics, archaeology, linguistics, riding horses, marital arts, and museum curation have been many things that I could have done in more than one profession at a time. I am still learning how these things can push through functionally and, then, see how any of those things can help me benefit and support my personal lifestyle.

Before the pandemic even happened, finding a job or career in museum curation and history or anything that has to do with previous experience before those interests are as difficult now for everyone, especially college students like myself and others I personally know. Even trying to make art for money is hard because the economy is not essentially as successful to find artists to keep themselves financially accountable for their living and affordability. Doing taxes or customer service were easy things for me to do before I could have done the effort being an artist to make an affordable living. Pursuing other interests in my artistic side like making jewelry, fashion, graphic design, and architectural elements would be considered potential in my possible outcome of a future career I hoped to ensure while I am aspiring to make art and establish an actual career in museum curation and administration.

For music, it has kept my spirit and heart alive in order to drive myself in a position where I know what direction I am taking through matters of caution. No matter if it is opera, classical music, jazz, pop, R&B, and cultural folk, I am active to kept myself alive. Aside of listening to music, I practice singing whatever music I am in the mood of, which is only for everyday life and whatever purpose I find myself to pursue. When I was very little, I had a boy soprano to high tenor voice after being educated with music by my mother who was a classical musician as well as a vocally, trained lyric spinto soprano with a depth of coloratura at home. As I was reaching through age, I learn through playing violin, guitar, piano, harmonica, and sometimes the trumpet although I never played it and was given to me as a Christmas gift long ago. Until I was reaching to my teenage years, my tenor voice dropped octaves lower around baritone way down to the full bass range, plus below. But, I was able to be flexible to get around bass and baritone parts when singing at an everyday basis. Before the arrival of Covid came through, I recently joined a student university church choir where I was the only real singer as well as a true bass in the category whereas the sopranos and altos sounded like mice, the tenors sang like broken glass, and the few basses and baritones on my end were undeveloped and sounded like tenors. Even though I had trouble with the pitch I was using to improve my lower voice, it seemed that I had gotten better after the years of recording myself and thought how bad I sounded before. Mastering my entire range is a challenge because of my current focus on the low notes, but it's how musical artists are suppose to do in order to keep practicing before my voice wears out.

The only thing that I least could have been doing a long time ago is the idea of how I could have establishment a relationship with someone who not only would have to love me, but would understand me. It's great having friends, but not so great trying to find a girl in some circumstances all because I have a mild learning disability that effects my plans to establish a relationship. The only first time I ever recall attempting to have one was with a cheerleader at high school 10 years ago. The mistake I made at that time was when I had the naive nerve to call her "beautiful" in front of her, which was one great, big flaw I made and I acted like I didn't know what it means. If there is a special someone in the future that will come into my life once the pandemic will be over, I am sure wouldn't be as foolish I once was before to make it happen. And if I ever tried a relationship with any woman I'd be interested, I would just thought tthe idea that some guy with autism being in love with a woman or any would be very ackward in some cases unless she could truly recognize who the man is through his own eyes.

Overall, being autistic really meant that there had been a great deal of lessons I had learned from the past and the challenges I am willing to take, accept, and overcome. I may be autistic, but not severely because I am consciously aware of anything, especially to what I correspond, recall, observe, or recognize through various aspects. I am an artist, a gentlemen, a hard-working scholar, and someone with great taste. If I wouldn't have been the man I am, I probably would have gone to the wrong direction if it wasn't for my mother who raised me to be well to overcome my fears and mental challenges. Still, I may go through long roads that impact my learning process and social skills, but I reflect how the lessons I learned from the past can help me overcome the anxiety I long to fight in order to be a perfect man. Finding my own voice is a tough road to travel because there are dead ends and heavy traffic flow to fully pass through. In other words, the disability not only affects my social and learning lifestyle, it also affects my emotions as well. As long as I can master and overcome it, the better the man I will be.