RoseReads

It isn’t a far leap from history major to author—after all, historians are storytellers. Stories are what attracted me to history in the first place. I love knowing the tales behind historical events, the human moments tucked between dates and battles. One of my favorites is about Abraham Lincoln’s beard. While he was campaigning in 1860, an 11-year-old girl named Grace Bedell wrote him a letter…

Last Tuesday, a very kind and caring psychologist confirmed what I have known for the last 4 years.  I am autistic and have been for the last 48 years. Autism as a condition has been recognized as a condition since 1943.  Today,  diagnosis comes with levels instead of labels. The old systems of labeling people as high or low functioning was misleading.  People who were diagnosed with high…

Today, I was asked if I was autistic autistic and since the questioner was a child. I answsered without an ounce of sacrasm. Channeling the most patient of teachers, my eighth grade English teacher, a woman who spent 3 hours in a lockdown with 20 kids, I answered. Everyone who is autistic is autistic austistic. The diffference between me and your neighbor is that I have low support needs while…

Photo by Yaroslav Danylchenko on Pexels.com This chapter has been delayed due to illness, try as I might, boosted as I am, COVID took me down again. It also changed the topic of this chapter. Last weekend when I should have been welcoming Mamma home from the hospital, I was buried in covers attempting to sleep my way out of the cold from heck. It didn’t worry although I managed to rouse myself…

Autism or Autism Spectrum disorder can be defined by the medical community is a neurological and developmental disorder that affects how people interact with others, communicate, learn, and behave caused by difference in the brain. Say Autism and some people think of Sheldon on Big Bang Theory or Dr. Shaun Murphy on the Good Doctor. Someone who is emotionally stilted, incredibly smart and male.…

Chapter 2: Books I love… Books I write

Books I Love Since 2012, I have been participating in the Goodreads – Reading Challenge and while I am constantly reading I’ve only completed it twice officially. A couple of times, I simply forgot to enter the books after I read them (2015, I am looking at you.). Photo by ready made on Pexels.com This past year, I was two books short of my goal; 60 books.The last couple weeks of 2022 were…

Everyday is a new chapter in our lives. Today is the first chapter in a new volume of your life. It is time to begin implementing the plans you have making. What is that? You haven’t finished those plans. Don’t worry you aren’t alone. I can’t count the number of things that I haven’t finished planning or even begun to plan. New Year’s reminds me of the beginning of school year. Friends and…

100 Words on ADHD

The knowledge that I have ADHD has transformed my life. Many of the things which I believed were faults were the effects of trying to adapt to a neurotypical world when there was no way to fit my triangle peg in to the octagon hole without glaring gaps. Those gaps are the things which cause the most issues. I can’t do what I am not designed to do. Literally, my brain doesn’t operate on the same…

100 Words on my Doctor

My doctor is not neurospicy. She has an ego that worries me. On the 6th of the month, I received an email saying that I need to talk to my doctor about getting a blood test due to high blood calcium level. On the 9th, I requested an appointment and by the 10th, I had an appointment for today. Google was not helpful. My doctor was less than helpful. She seemed more concerned that someone was…

100 Words on Evidence

This meme has run across my socials multiple times in the last couple of weeks. In 1994, I thought I knew so much but the evidence was weak. Since then I’ve learned and unlearned so many things. When I learned that I had ADHD, I had to unlearn shame and guilt. I am forgetful, I am impulsive and I make mistakes. I am a human with ADHD. Unlearning that I wasn’t weak or irresponsible was easier…

100 Words on my Curves

When I first hear Homage to My Hips by Lucille Clifton, I felt like she was talking to me. My hips are big hips, they don’t fit into little places and need room to move around. I was empowered that day and every time I’ve read it or heard it recited. In fact, the first time I heard it recited was on a sunny Sunday morning in the sanctuary of First UU in Orlando. The power of those words spoken…

100 Words on Ramona & the Bus

Yesterday, a kind librarian gifted me a book, Ramona Quimby ~ Age 8 by Beverly Cleary. One of my very favorite books when I was age 8. I remember reading this on the bus riding to elementary school. My mom had decided that since my big brother was no longer walking with me to school that we would sneak me on to the bus which picked up the kids across the street. The rule was that all kids within…

100 Words After A Welcomed Nap

Came home early to a quiet house and two pooches wagging their tails, well one was. The second pup, my Luke, meandered in a few minutes after his legs stiff from a long hard nap. Ready for another one if I was game. The momentum of moment spent, I was game. These false summer days when the heat doesn’t know not to beat down so hard and the rush of thunder and lightening has yet to come are hard…

100 Words Talking To A Friend

Can I call again? Of course. Sometimes when a friend calls they don’t need advice. They need you to listen and reassure them that they aren’t a bad person for setting boundaries. You listen and speak when called. You listen and don’t insert yourself. You listen and when you expect that the process will begin again, they ask you a question. You answer without hesitance and with the same honesty…

100 Words Sitting in my Study

There is no air-conditioning in my sanctum this evening. There hasn’t been air-conditioning here for two weeks. While living in Florida as I did five years ago would have made this experience a new level of hell and I would have had to flee with Luke for a cooler desk upon which to procrastinate; in Virginia, it is highly annoying and makes writing a sweaty activity. Luke has not abandoned me…

100 Words on a Sunday Night

Everyday I have a simple goal. Write a hundred words a day. A hundred words closer to my next book/blog or article. For the last two weeks, I’ve been on break from the day job and I’ve virtually ignored my keyboard except for five hundred words that the muse demanded that I write. s Still, progress is progress and these hundred words will see the glow of electrons of the inter-webs and receive a…

Writing for a Living

Everyday I wake up day with the hope that today will day that make another concrete step towards writing for a living. And somedays, I make that step. Other days, I fall into bed only having day dreamed about the stories I wanted to tell. Writing for a living or writing for my main paycheck is an aspiration. A dream and goal which I work towards. But at nearly 47, I wonder if it is what I…