A Tale of Two Window Washings

How I’m accepting the challenges of my Autistic self by embracing the pleasures

Photo by on — but that could easily have been me in the anticipation stage

Right on time, the rope appears outside the living room window. It’s 7:00 a.m. on day one of window washing for my apartment complex.

The rope swings and jiggles. It’s white with thin blue stripes. I notice a second, identical one lurking near the corner.

I glance around my living room. Throw pillows are askew. Should I straighten them?

I’m curled under my weighted blanket, sipping a cup of coffee. Should I look more like a work-from-home professional? Less of a chilling-in-the-privacy-of-my-lair person? Should I try to seem less interested? Less obsessed? Less like a child?

Less Autistic?

That would take far too much masking. And ever since being diagnosed as Autistic and ADHD during the ever-so-sweet perimenopause years, I try my darnedest not to waste energy on masking my true self. Never again.

So I admit I have waited impatiently for this day — my first ever experience being inside a high-rise while window washers shimmy past with their squeegees — to arrive, and now that the moment is imminent, I feel myself completely geeking out. I’m surprised that I’ve turned out to be such a fangirl of building…