Through the Eye's of a Spectrum Living With Autism

Chapter 14: The End of High School; Change of Life

When senior year hit, I was excited but shocked at the same time, I remember sitting in my room and looking back on my life.

I remember being a nervous little kid walking into elementary school, and a scared teenager afraid of being picked on in middle school, to being a finish high school. I just kept telling myself in my head "It's almost over. It's almost over."

I said this because I was given some news a while back by Jenny that I would moving from Texas to Illinois, which was cool and sad in many ways.

How you ask? Well, truth is, I kind of wanted to get the heck out of El Paso for a really long time. I didn't like how some of the kids mad fun of me and just wanted to a change of scenery, So this would be good for me.

But, at first I really didn't want to move because even if I didn't like the place as much, El Paso was where I was born and raised. I was living a lot of my life behind, my home, the memories and everything else. Funny story, I even considered letting my Dad and step-mom Jenny leave themselves and living on my own in El Paso. But I came to realization that I knew nothing about living on my own and taking care of myself, so if I stayed behind on my own, well, I don't know what would've happened to me, but I bet it wouldn't be good.

I just had to come to terms that I was leaving my home and had to accept. Not gonna lie, I cried a couple of times. Not balling my eyes out, but a couple of tears, I mean I didn't want to leave Texas. I had always lived with the thought of "Born in Texas, die in Texas."

But then I remembered that Jenny lived here for almost seven years and it was just as hard for her to leave her home in Illinois, so I asked what kind of person would I be if thought of myself and not allow her to go back home? Well, I guess I'd be a selfish person. I just answered my own question.

With high school coming up again, I had of course theatre one last time, and decided to take culinary class, so I could learn to cook. Which for me would be an ok class for me. I even had to take a government and economics class that year. Government was somewhat easy, but economics was sort of a challenge for me. Scratch that, I think a lot of people found it to be challenging.

Even with it being my last year I still avoided people I didn't really know, cause I was afraid of people being judgmental of me so I just kept to myself. One day though someone approached me during lunch as I was sitting by myself.

Her name was Mireille, she invited me to sit with her and her friends, and of course I told her I would consider it, seeing as how I was a socially awkward person so I didn't know what to do.

After some thinking, I then came to the conclusion, I didn't want to be some awkward loner, so I took her up on her offer and decided to hang with her and her friends. I was in for a big surprised meeting because it wasn't a mix of boys and girls, it was all girls.

One of them was her sister Letizia or as she went Leann, which if you were to see this two, you couldn't tell they were both sisters. Or maybe you could, I don't know, I couldn't tell maybe it was just me. Another one of her friends was a girl who I knew named Alejandra, who I had for Theatre classes. I wish I could tell you the others but I couldn't get reach or contact any of them to ask permission so out of respect they will remain alias.

Funny thing, It was great sitting with a group of people, because I was learning to socialize and interact with others, which of course is a good thing for my autism. But hanging out with a group girls can feel a little awkward, most of it was just me worrying like acting like a total buffoon, but I was a guy sitting with a group girls and the last thing I wanted to do was make them feel awkward sitting with me.

It was still good though, I had Mireille for theatre and government/economics, so we would often study with each other. such as quizzing each other with note cards, which was always funny to see ourselves struggle to think at times. We both had our advantages which helped us. 

I did get to meet someone else who was in my government class, her name was Arlene. She was a fun loving girl, and was nice to talk to. The sad thing is I never really got to really know her much, cause I only knew her for about a few weeks cause she was going to be moving to another school in El Paso. Still if there was one thing I could say about her, is that I was I glad I got to meet her.

To bring up more interesting matters, the construction for the school had finally finished and new parts of the school were just added.  And to dive into in my classes, senior year was probably one of the best years I have ever had in my life at any school. Theatre was fun and like I said about culinary, it was fun in a way.

Theatre I had the biggest moment of my life, which to play the Cat in the Hat in the play known as "Suessical Jr".

The reason it had such a big impact on me was because this play really made me feel alive. I felt by playing as The Cat in the Hat, I was just really being me on stage. He's a wacky, funny, guy and I see myself that way as well. Just by reading the play and could get everything down, the songs, the movements, and with a little bit of help from my theatre teacher, I was able to find new ways to perform as the other Cat's personas.

One of the biggest additions to the school was the Theatre room, we had at least over one hundred seats in the room. So I would be performing for a lot of people. On the day of the performance, I never felt more alive than ever. That day would forever go down as the best moment of my life.

as for my culinary, that had it's ups and downs to it. I was expecting to meet a lot of new people and do cool things, but nope, I was stuck doing dishes half the time, and the other half was me just cutting vegetables or peeling potato's.

Kids who were less experienced than me got to cook and all that stuff, and I got the boring task. And a lot of the kids in that class were only in it to slack off or to hang out with their friends so of course that was real annoying.

But there was someone who happen to be apart of the culinary, Ameila happened to be a culinary student and I started to talk with her. She was really fun and nice, and she was definitely talented in culinary arts. I feel like she wasn't given enough credit though, she knew what she was doing and they never acknowledged her.

I began to chit-chat with her every chance I got and every time I did it was a real nice time. Amelia was a sweet person who cared about her friends, and personally I could go to her sometimes when I had problems and she would always help me out, I'm so glad I got to get to know her more.

As graduation drew near, I decided to make a new goal in life which lead to the idea of me writing this story of mine. With how many kids making fun of me for my autism in the past, I decided to become an advocate for autism, I wanted to spread awareness to something that many people seem to know anything about. I wanted to give other people with autism a chance for people to understand them.

On the day of graduation, I never felt more alive than ever. I told myself "It's over. It's finally over." I could be done with high school, which was a crazy ride for my mind, and can begin to prepare myself for the real world. It was great seeing my Sister, my mom and my family there to see me graduate, and was the one time I could actually see them all together in one place.

That was the end of my school life in El Paso, and it was time for me to begin a new life in another part of the U.S.