BGM: FAIRCHILD - Jelly Eyesは甘くない
Today I worked early. Yesterday, before I had gone to bed, I noticed that Shiso city has a community center named "Once Upon A Time" by chance. I learned a couple is holding an English conversation class at there (a Japanese man and an American woman) from their Facebook page. It is in Chikusa city so not near my home, but I thought I wanted to go to there if possible. And anyway, I wanted to talk about that, so called them at my lunchtime. The person answered my call really tenderly even though my calling must be a little bit too "sudden". And he seemed that he already had known me because I had done "Like!" to their Facebook page. He said he had read my journal a little. When I said that "TBH I am autistic, therefore I am not good at speaking in Japanese and English..." then he said "you are good enough". And I promised that I would write an e-mail to them. Our talk finished.
And the evening, I have finished my work so I wrote that e-mail. It became the one like an autobiography of me. Being born in this Shiso city, being bullied at schools. And I told I had learned English literature as a college student in Tokyo. After that, I came back to this town and started my career... but it was troublesome. And my 33, I had met a woman at an offline meeting and I had started doubting if I was autistic by her words (at that time, we called it as Asperger Syndrome). I said to her that "I heard that I can be diagnosed at a group in Osaka, so I would like to go there". Then she said "It must be really, OBVIENTLY autistic if you had never doubted if you were autistic". In short, she said to me "Oh my, have you never doubted it!?". And I went to the clinic I used to go to talk about this, then the doctor said "You can be judged by some tests to see if you are autistic", and at last, after those tests I learned I am autistic.
But, in a way my life or "this story" started from that point actually... Ah! After accepted that I am autistic, I learned about the cafe where the same handicapped people get together. I started attending there. When I was 40, I started attending the meeting about autism, and that enabled me to live in the group home, and even realize using the system of job coaches. What a wonderful life. I don't want to write any traumatic thing right now so I will tell you a little bit different story. By that encountering, I started enjoying the English conversation class the Shiso International Association holds. At there, I started re-training my English. "You've Come A Long Way, Baby"... Even I went to Waseda to learn English literature, I had never had any confidence about my English. I believed strictly that paper tests couldn't judge my true skill of English. Or I can say that attitude of doubting my English is cool or actual.
...And I read what I had wrote in this journal. Suddenly, I remembered that a female friend of mine had sent me a LINE message. In that, She had said that my mother and she had talked a little. She said that my mother had said that "I couldn't understand the autism"... Of course, it was just the era we had never had any ideas about autistic when I was a kid (I guess it was 90s when Lorna Wing had discovered or found the concept). So I never blame her as a poisonous parent. I want to see what I can do to walk forward, that's all... On writing an e-mail to that "Once Upon A Time", I remembered that I had tried to tell my opinions logically because of the difficulties in my life. I had felt irritated that in this human society people can move by their fuzzy emotion. Why can they be moved by that fuzzy emotion? They must treat logic preciously... I thought so. But now I think it is too extreme. Indeed, logic is important, but also the movement of emotion shouldn't be ignored. I want to treat the middle essence between logic and emotion... Why do I talk about this topic? When did I lose the story?
