I have discovered something significant about being a middle-aged autistic man. I grow out of things. This process required me to do a lot of hard work. It helped me mature into the man that I have been recently. But ultimately I discovered that I had grown out of some of the things. These are things I have done for several decades. And that is OK.

I have been doing some of the things I have been doing my entire adult life. A few months ago, I discovered that I have begun to mature more. Part of that maturing process is growing out of things that have been a part of my adult life. For most of my adult life, I have done things because they were expected of me. These expectations were just like they were of any human adult. Some things stuck but there have been some things that were no longer in my best interest.

Even as I see that I have grown out of something, it can be difficult for those who love us. They can’t see this change. Recognizing change can be hard for them. They always imagine that we will stay a part of something. This is because they see it in the way that it was when we started. They do not see how much we grow from things. They do not see how we are yearning to get out of something that we feel trapped in. We are only hurting ourselves, which feels uncomfortable to us. Those close to us think that because we are stepping away from what we have known, we will fall apart. They fear that we will not succeed. But that is not always true.

There have been times in my past that I wasn’t thinking clearly. I thought I was making the right decision when I was not. Those overseeing me were concerned and now looking back they had the right reasons for that. Now, I am working harder. I see how important it is to avoid those places I once was. I also know that if I had kept doing what I was doing, I would only continue to feel uncomfortable. What used to be my life was no more.

I’ll be the first to admit that change can be scary. There have been several changes in the past few years that were scary at first. But, they became easier as time went on. I have had my moments when I thought that things would be worse or more challenging. Nevertheless, sometimes it is a sign that I am too comfortable with things the way they are. I need to expand from what I have been doing into some new territories.

It can be hard for those that care about us. They struggle to hear that some things weren’t meant to be in our lives forever. Sometimes we first go about them the wrong way. Maybe that is divine intervention telling us that we need to do things the same for a while longer. That same divine intervention can come around a year later. It tell us that it’s time to grow closer to leaving behind those things we’ve tried to leave before. We just weren’t ready yet.

Those interventions I experienced showed me I needed to work on myself longer. I had to make a slow transition from what I was slowly growing out of. It made me feel uncomfortable. Things that are put in place are supposed to help us, then we move on from it. But when something has been so habitual for so long it can be hard to imagine a world without it. But if we are patient and make the right decisions, everything will fall into place for the right reasons.