I really expected to talk to my family about this stuff. To come back from the AM and get to partake in all the conversations I assume they have about the wonders of being Atypical. Maybe they’ve never had those conversations, maybe I’m not missing out on anything at all, but it feels like I probably would be getting inducted into some kind of family Atypical club if it weren’t for the bomb the AM dropped on my dad and, therefore, the rest of us.

If I’m not going to talk about being Atypical with them, if it’s not going to be something I tell the girl I’m dating, if I can’t actually belong anywhere, I may as well belong to dreams.

NOVEMBER 10TH, 2016

I hate this I hate this I hate this I HATE THIS.

I feel like I’m thirteen again, storming up the stairs after having a fight with my mom, except this time I’m basically a fully grown adult, lingering “-teen” attached to my age completely irrelevant when I have a job and a girlfriend (maybe?) and the problems of someone much, much older than me.

“Nice of you to come home in time for dinner,” my mom said as I walked into the kitchen, not even turning around from her position at the counter. She was putting dishes in the sink, and I could see the remnants of a meal packed away in open Tupperware. Message received. Loud and clear.

“Things ran late at the restaurant,” I said. Why didn’t I just say sorry? Do the usual routine: apologize, sneak whatever food I could, and run upstairs to watch Netflix?

Snap. She put a lid on one of the leftovers containers.

“Have they let you get back on the line yet?”

Snap. Another lid.

“Not yet,” I said. “Chef is worried about me falling asleep while manning the deep fryer.”

“A valid concern,” she grumbled under her breath.

Snap.

She stacked the three containers on top of one another and turned to put them in the fridge, her leg going up at the same time to close the dishwasher. The silent language of my mother—always moving, efficient and exacting, ice positively radiating off of her shoulder.

“I’ve been doing better,” I said. Tiptoeing across the ice. Crouching down so that I can more evenly distribute my weight. Sliding over to her across the chilly expanse, all the while hoping that the ice beneath me wouldn’t crack and send me plummeting into the freezing depths.

“I’m glad to hear it,” she said, closing the fridge and turning to me. “Did you eat?”