1.

I was born on a Thursday. The eighth Thursday of the 21st century. I've given you a riddle rather than stating my birthdate outright not to be difficult (though I often am, and always have been), but to prove its irrelevance to the story I'm about to tell you. I don't remember that day at all. If I had to guess I'd say it was cold, the streets were jam-packed with cars, and everyone felt varying degrees of misery. They probably complained about the weather, the traffic, the stolen election, or their baby on the way who refused to show herself until she was quite literally yanked into this world by the head with a pair of forceps. All that is to say, I have a strong propensity for tardiness. And, though it feels as if I'm becoming a new version of myself every time I blow out my birthday candles, it seems that, in the grand scheme of things, not much has changed. I take comfort in that familiarity. I may live in a new house, but at the end of every day, I rest my head on a pillow I've had since the fifth grade.

Thus far, I've stuck to the facts. All the facts add up to a mundane conclusion, which is that I am a 24 year old woman who lives a very average, terribly boring life. But the past couple of years (or maybe the past couple of decades) have been anything but boring. That's not to say they've been "good" per se, but that they've been revelatory and I feel both further from and closer to myself than I ever have before.

It would be awfully poetic if I said that I felt like I've died and been reborn, but it would be reductive and cliche, and a flat-out line in both fact and in feeling. The facts are as follows: I am autistic and I am a lesbian, and I did not come to realize either of these things until the age of 23. Thus, it still feels weird to say (or, in this case, write) either of those things openly.

Both revelations came to me separately. One in a psychologist's office and the other in a "friend's" bed. They both should have been far more obvious than they were to me, and looking back, I both grieve and I laugh. I grieve the person I pretended to be, the person I really thought I was for so long, and I laugh at the real woman inside who was able to trick herself into believing in the facade she created.

I've spoken quite a bit about my previous relationship (sometimes more cryptically than others). It is the subject of at least 50% of my poetry, which is due to the fact that I mostly write out of anger and longing. During the time I was in that relationship, I didn't write much at all because I was in a perpetual state of sadness that lasted until I lost all sense of self and didn't have a place to hold all of those feelings anymore, and I became numb for the most part. He told me I was nothing, and because I constantly walked on eggshells and tried to do anything to make him love me, I let myself waste away.

I broke up with him over the phone. Twice.

I often tell people that the best thing my ex ever did was cheat on me because it gave me a reason to leave him. While I cannot say that I am a happy person in general, I am happier than I have been in awhile. I have never been a happy-go-lucky sort of girl. I always see the glass half-empty, and because I am stubborn, I firmly believe that you cannot change your perspective on those types of things. I will never be an optimist, but I am okay with that.

I am okay with just *being* at all.

I am learning about what it means to be gay and what it means to have autism, and though these facts are new to my conscious mind, with every discovery comes a sense of familiarity. I am meeting with an old friend and I am growing into that old friend.

It all comes down to this: I am writing this on a Thursday. Everyone is complaining about the weather, about the incoming hurricane that they say is "the first of its kind". If I had a nickel for every time something was supposedly "the first of its kind", I would be rich. Contrary to the "breaking news" in my life and on TV, it seems like any other Thursday to me.