What it means to be a Wyrd Mom

Hello readers! I am the single mom of a wonderful 6-year-old boy.

I am a smiley, optimistic parent and my positive outlook and inquisitive nature have helped me fit in with groups and social circles everywhere I have lived.

However, even when I've fit in, I've always felt a little weird, a bit different. 

I'd like to say I felt like anthropologist living among natives but alien living on a different planet might be more accurate. I've lived in dozens of places, in different countries, on different continents and everywhere I went I felt "I'm not from around here" until I moved to New York City. 

Wired to think differently, I was diagnosed as gifted as a child. 

In my teens I found comfort to learn that some of my weirdness could be explained away by theories of high IQ feelings of alienation. 

Relationships: In my twenties and thirties, when even my most intelligent friends went on to build lasting romantic relationships and traditional marriages, it became clear that intelligence was not the only thing weird about me. I wasn't just smart, I was weird. I accepted that it might take a long time for someone to get to know and appreciate the real me and I was okay with that. I always knew I wanted to have kids but finding a spouse and settling down were never big goals for me.  Romantic relationships stumbled anytime I saw a potential flaw in the future father a guy might be.

Motherhood: Things worked out, sort of. I have one kid I love with all my heart. My only regret is that I didn't start soon enough to give him siblings. His father is an irresponsible flake who pretends his son doesn't exist but I cannot even regret his paternity because the combination of our genes made for the most wonderful kid imaginable. 

Career: Professionally, after years of "almost" achieving my potential bouncing from one career to the next, I was found ADHD in my twenties and started taking medication. The change was unbelievable. I could finally focus that big brain that had impressed so many teachers in elementary and high school. I got my act together, rocked some standardized tests and got into my dream MBA. 

The dream of finally unlocking my potential was at my door but I struggled to fit in at business school. On the one hand, I was excited to connect with so many smart people and signed up for anything and everything with high hopes of making great friends and building a professional network to last a lifetime. On the other hand, I felt older than everyone else, even the people my age seemed to have much more traditional lives. By this time I got to Columbia, I had lived as an adult in the US, Latin America and briefly in Europe and the Middle East. Typically ADHD, I had worked in non-profit, healthcare, world peace, technology, education, retail, and legal services. 

  

Finding Myself: I have a few good friends in the world whom I love like family but I've generally found adult relationships to be challenging.  By my second year of MBA, it was clear that I did not fit in with these people who had everything so together. I signed myself up for testing at the Sinai Center for Autism in New York where I was found to be on the spectrum. I shared the results within some small circles in school. 

The stereotypical, male, non-verbal autistic idea makes it hard for people to see autism in a smiley woman like me. I am not even sure how much I want people to see autism in me but living as if I were normal isn't working so I am embracing my weirdness in the hopes that this blog will help people understand and relate to me and people like me.

Why Wyrd: If the blog title intrigues you, it is a bow to the late, great Terry Pratchett whose Discworld books always made me feel a little more normal by making the real world seem a little more crazy. 

As an atheist / recovering Catholic, "Small Gods" is my personal favorite but I hope to channel the unabashedly wonderful eccentricity of the discworlds witches:  Granny Weatherwax and the "Wyrd Sisters" and Tiffany Aching in "I Shall Wear Midnight." 

If I were a man, I would probably have been a successful jerk who never thought twice about how I relate to the world and the world would have accepted any social limitations as indicators of my genius. 

As a mildly autistic woman who hopes to raise a child to be a better, more empathetic person than I am so that he may cherish small joys of positive, lasting relationships, I appreciate your time and welcome suggestions and comments to every post.  

Thanks for reading.