It’s really hard for me to change my toothbrush, let alone move across the entire country, and yet here I am. Four months ago my girlfriend and I moved to Iowa; she accepted a University teaching position and I am still doing Sign Language Interpreting (it’s a fairly transient natured job so I can find work anywhere and I am always in demand).
I knew it would be extremely difficult for me to assimilate into a completely different culture. People talk different, act different, look different, wear different clothes, place different values on things…just in general DIFFERENT.
I used to say that things were ‘wrong’. I got a replacement phone and it was ‘wrong’, I got a new job and it was ‘wrong’, we moved from Texas to Iowa and it was ‘VERY WRONG”…one day my girlfriend looked at me and said “Is is ‘wrong’? Or is it ‘different'”. Long story short I am trying very hard to use the right word because it helps the people around me more clearly understand what I am feeling.
Moving is hard. It is different. It isn’t wrong.
I’m struggling with it right now but I know that will pass and I will eventually love it as much as I love home. It’s just going to take a LOT more time for that to happen with me than it would with a NT person.
Aspie Haven 