Was reading various books, articles, web sites, to try to understand my autistic step son. Realised that I met the criteria for autism and ADHD, explains why so much in my life has been difficult and weird. Not formally diagnosed, it’s pretty obvious when you know what to look for, and I don’t think it would help. FML

I’m 55. I was a potato couch until 47. Then I discovered the outdoors, the mountains, the sea, the rivers. Turns out I hated gyms not exercise and I am passionate about nature.

I was never interested in clothes. Then I found out about second hand stores. Turns out I hated current fast fashion, not clothes.

I used to argue a lot, now I don’t bother. Some people do not deserve the compliment of rational opposition.

That I’m actually married to a woman I love and who loves me.
When I was 20 I thought I’d die a sad virgin.
When I was 30 I thought I was incapable of sustaining a relationship.
Turns out there are other people who are as broken weird as me, some of them are women, and one of them was the right one for me.

Just how alone I’ve made myself. I had many opportunities for it not be this way, yet here I am.

That I’m alive I guess? Didn’t expect to make it to 15,now almost 30.

Everything is still shit, but I got older instead of dead.

Still no idea what I want to do when I grow up. And im already thinking about retirement.

That I’m alive. Didn’t want to keep going past high school graduation. Now I’m 30 and not sure what keeps me going tbh. Most likely just fear of death.

54, that I’m still here.

33 and surprised how childlike I still feel.

At 41 I’m surprised by how much more self confident I have become. I still remember what it felt like being the insecure girl I was in high school, but it’s so obvious to me now that the things I was afraid of then were silly. I wish I had worried less and enjoyed life more back then, but I’m glad I have come as far as I have. I wonder when I look back in another 25 years if I’ll feel just as foreign to myself at 41.

That I look ancient. My family tends to be well preserved, but I got chronically ill and look 10 years too old.

I’m surprised by how much I know. It perhaps shouldn’t be surprising given that I have both autism and ADHD and that makes me enthusiastic about learning basically everything, but I’m chuffed with how well rounded my knowledge is.

I studied biochemistry at university, but over the last 5 years or so, I’ve been doing a lot more reading in topics like the history and philosophy of science, philosophy more generally, political theory, disability theory, queer theory, economics, design, programming etc… My knowledge in each of these areas is relatively shallow, but I seem to be pretty good at forming lateral links between things I know, which means I can be quite fun to have in depth discussions with. It helps that I got a hell of a lot smarter when I stopped being so attached to my identity as a smart person and learned how to say “no, I haven’t heard of $thing, tell me more” or “I think I’ve heard of that, but I’m not sure — remind me?”

A year or so ago, a friend who studied English called me “well read” and it gave me a bit of an existential crisis. “But I don’t actually fully read most of the books I talk about. Many of them I just skim them until I find a chapter or two that’s most useful to me!”. Turns out that that kind of reading strategy is typical of people who are well read.

My late best friend was a historian, and one of the things I loved about our friendship is arguing with him about random shit. His background meant he often approached an issue in a completely different way to me, and we’d often ask questions or make points that would require the other to go away and think about it for a while before forming a response. I think he’d be really proud of me (and also aggravatingly smug due to him being a significant driving force behind me getting more into history).

I am in my mid-50s and surprised by a few things. I’m not jaded, small things still delight me. I’m not nostalgic, find so much good new music every year, new authors and books, still figure out different ways to approach problems at my work - I thought I’d be more stuck or settled by now, and for sure thought I’d be bored and jaded.

And I am constantly surprised nothing really hurts yet, thought I’d be less together physically than I am. Sometimes surprised I can still cartwheel.

I am unhappily surprised to see society going backwards and hope I live long enough to see it turn back around and progress.

41 and I’m surprised I’m not more crazy spending as much time alone as I do

I recently visited Blackpool Tower, which has a glass bottom bit near the top where you walk on glass and can see a massive, definitely lethal, drop underneath you. I was petrified to get on it, and could only walk on the glass by looking upwards.

Until that moment I thought I was still brave. Im scared of heights but fear never really stopped me from doing much before. Ive avoided certainties out of pragmatic fear, but I’d never known myself to be scared of fear itself until that moment.

Going to the glass and finding myself unable to walk onto it was very surprising. I even told my wife “huh, this is new…”