I remember what it was like to have each moment planned. I liked to live my life at the edge of the headlights, in anticipation of what would happen next. As I climbed stairs, I was looking at the steps before me and hardly noticed the feeling of tread beneath my feet.
I am becoming a bit more reckless about planning my ‘future’ life. I am doing less planning and more paying attention. My body seems more alive and less anxious. Maybe I’m reprogramming my Aspergers brain.
It is but a small change because I still plan much of my day. I still think I know what is going to happen, especially what I am going to do. I often decide what I am going to have for dinner a couple of times before the afternoon is spent.
However, I yield to the current a little more. I let moments wash over me without attempting to control and guide them. I find that I leave unsaid many comments I was about to insert into a conversation, and it is OK.
More of my life is recklessly out of my control. I am still far from being able to surrender to the flow of time, but I am learning to enjoy the waves rolling over me. Playing in the surf can sometimes upend me. But I am less touched by my anticipations, less fettered by my view of how things ought to be.
It is a reckless way to live, and admittedly more full of peril. It is also a life with less fear and full of more potential than I could ever imagine.