The Enclosed Instruction Book

When longtime friends block me. This has happened no fewer than twice (four if you count AM and JL from high school).

I am autism [sic] and I have no idea why they felt that step was needed. I am savvy of Normal People enough to know that incessant barrages of messages are annoying. I’d check in at intervals of a few weeks to a few months, typically in response to some news they had shared.

One of these was TG, whom I’d known since 1996. She, I remember specifically, was elated that I did not have to end up changing high schools back in the day—it seemed I would have to, but her grandfather was the then-superintendent of my school and was able to intervene on my behalf, and thus I didn’t have to leave. The other, EL, was on the drumline (albeit when I was in high school and she in junior high), and if you know anything about drumlines you’d understand why I felt this as a major shock.

It is not mine to ask them why. It is mine to accept it and move on. But I’ll be a liar if I said it didn’t affect me.