Ep. 01 Intro - What Happens When...? - Start Here!

Gem: Hello. It's 6:34am on a Saturday morning in August, and I am in my car in my driveway. Everything's packed. I'm ready to go to Scotland, and I have no idea what's going to happen. I'm excited for whatever comes, but at the same time, it's been a lot leading up to going away, so there's a part of me that's really nervous about being on my own for five days, and what that will be like, given that things have been very intense, and I'll say more about that later.

Last night for the first time, I had a session with my coach, who is amazing and Autistic and ADHD and queer and brilliant, and she helped me, for the first time, mentally prepare for a trip. And that's something I've always had to do on my own, or kind of had to figure out how to do on my own, and to have someone ask me things like, "How can you make the place visually feel more home?", "How can you make sure that some of your routines are still able to happen?", all of those kinds of things, really it was so nice to have someone first of all understand what that experience is like, how difficult it can be to go away, and secondly, to actually be able to go through that process, not having to do it internally, or you know through just anxious thoughts and being able to really talk it through was so helpful.

So I've got my Squishmallow, I've got fidgets. What else did I pack? I packed my ukulele, my cards, which I was going to bring anyway, but you know, just a lot of things, oh and some things from home, like a little mushroom bowl, things that I like to look at, and that feels so nice. I've also got some foods that I know that I will be happy to have with me, like tea, for example, and decaf coffee and gluten free bread and things like that that I know that at least I'll have with me, even if I can't get them when I'm somewhere else.

So all of that feels really helpful and at the same time, I'm aware it feels there's definitely a part of me that is judging myself for the level of, I guess, prep, or the level of thought that needs to go into those things because maybe for some other people, they just go away. And in the past, I've just gone away and then kind of white-knuckled it. So it's really nice to think that actually this time, there's more intention behind it. So that's exciting.

Yeah, I guess I'm just intrigued to see what's going to happen over the next six days. I think I said five days, but it's six days. I'm about to drive to Scotland. It's like seven or eight hours away, because I have to stop and charge my electric car, but yeah, when we get there, I'll see what this project becomes. I'm excited. I'm quite nervous, and it really feels like the last five months have been leading up to this experience. So I feel like I've processed a lot of stuff, but, yeah, intrigued to see what comes up.

So thank you so much for being here and listening along, and I hope that what I share is of some value to you, or what I discover feels at least in some ways relatable, because that's kind of the whole point of this, like, I really want to put something out there that people feel they can relate to. And, yeah, I just think there's such... obviously, there is more and more sharing of people's autistic experience, but I know that it would have helped me to hear about, you know, people who are queer and non binary and trans and Autistic and ADHD and yeah, so I'm rambling. Basically, I hope you get something out of it. If you don't, that's totally fine and sorry for wasting your time. But, yeah, let's see. Ah, here we go. I'm gonna drive.

Okay, I'm here. It took me 10 hours because I had to stop and charge like three times on the way. I made it. It's really nice. And yeah, I'm not being very descriptive, am I? I'm so tired. I'm realising how helpful it was to have talked through last night the things that were going to help me when I got here, because I'm feeling that very familiar anxiety of being away and things being different. I'm feeling a bit stressed about it. Feeling a bit stressed about cleanliness and food and all of that kind of stuff. But my mum made me a veggie lasagne, which is my all-time favourite meal. It's currently in the oven. You might be able to hear because it's one of those microwave oven things, so that's currently cooking. And I'm gonna try and just decompress for a bit, because I can feel that part of me really wants to get going and record things and say things, but also I'm exhausted, and I don't think I have many words left. So I made it. I'm here, and let's see what happens tomorrow. Bye!