Heres the setting: I attended my very first "conference", 2 1/2 day event, away from home with a friend of mine. It was a START, autism conference. I had never left home without my family before.
So my friend works for the School District and she and about 12 other people from her department, went down to Lansing for this conference and somehow, I was invited and decided to attend. I really had not a clue in the world as to what I was getting into, but I trusted my friend.
It was a three hour drive down and there were four of us in the car. Yup,I was surrounded by neuro-typicals and it was an interesting ride.
First observation...they (NTS) talk a whole lot almost non-stop with the heaviest conversing going on the first half of the trip and it seemed to diminish the closer we got to our destination. The vast majority of chatter is spent talking about either themselves or someone that they mutually know. Oh, they call this social interaction and such. So I knew one person well, another well enough and the third, the wild card, not at all. As a result, I really wasn't comfortable joining in so I played the absent observer, tuned out and plugged in to my music.
Second observation...they talk a whole lot about fluff, nothing, things of minimal to no importance, in this aspie head of mine, which is just fine, just not my cup of tea. Go figure.
Riding down and in the recesses of my own mind, my thoughts were as follows: "OH MY GOD, what the hell have I gotten myself into? Am I going to really, really regret this? WTF was I thinking that I had the capabilities to do this? What possible good could come of this?" and things along those lines :) I was pretty sure that I had made a most stupid and devestating decision and that there was no way out. Seriously, it was a lot of dread, subdued panic.
We arrive at our destination and it looked exactly like the photos I had checked out on the internet..except for two things. One, a revolving glass door which caused a momentary...okay, many moments of distress as it was unexpected, new, unusual and I wasn't sure there was another entrance except through it. It stopped me dead in my tracks. Had I not been amongst others, I surely would have stood there quite awhile. Okay, there were a couple of other doors so I was good.
Then it was registration at the big desk which gave me opportunity to check out the lobby to some extent..taking it all in.
Room time and we walked toward the elevator. OMG, it was a glass elevator. I looked around and even asked if there was another way up..nope. Ok, so I gingerly step in, face the door and proceed to curse and mutter uncontrollably until we get allll the way to the...wait for it...second floor. Dang, that was one long ride. i wasn't sure how I was going to manage that dang elevator for the next few days.
Stepping off the elevator and Yikes, an open air hallway where by there was a wall a few feet tall on each side and that was it, a clear view to the lobby...no safety here. I made sure to walk directly in the middle lest I fall off.
The room, the other huge unpredictable factor..was the room going to be safe, secure and without dangerous flaws or major discomforts. The first trial, walking in..it smelled okay, nothing nefarious in the air. Okay, the second test, can I sit on the bed or is it smelly, uncomfortable and filled with bad memories and energies? Yup, its good. Okay, how is the bleach factor? Most hotels wash their bedding with bleach and oft times they overdue it to the point where it is nothing but a thick, sickly stench. Okay, it doesn't reek....I'm good.
Then my roommates, two of those, start putting their clothes in those dresser drawers which I always find very odd. My clothes stay in my suitcase. The dressers don't belong to me, are used by many different people and somehow, other than one vacation where we stayed at one place for a solid week, I don't do that. It doesn't seem right. In a sense, it would be like giving my clothes away, they wouldn't be fully mine anymore and possession is 9/10ths of the law and i don't give away my clothing or share it in a communal area. I kept my clothes to myself. I have no problem using the closet to hang things, which may or may not make sense. Maybe its the amount of touching that my clothes do..a surface area thing...like, in a dresser, my clothes would be touching the drawer material whilst hanging something up, my clothes touch nothing because they are on the hanger. Not sure.
