Fast-Stop-Hurry-Stop-GO! this must be what it feels like to have Autism at times. The feeling of being overwhelmed that sticks with you for hours and not just minutes. Combine that with all the other fun of Autism and you don't get 1+1=2... you have 1+1=777. The world is moving by much like looking out the passenger window of a car going 135 mph. Yes, you can look straight forward and things seem to be moving faster than normal; but, when you clear the 100 mph mark and look out the side window there is no way you can focus on any objects. The world becomes a big blur. As you are flying down the road you can help but ask the obvious questions. Will the tire burst? Is there a nail ahead? Is there a red light up ahead? Is the power steering in good condition? Do the breaks really work? Will I learn why they call this a safety belt instead of a life saving belt? Is this my final ride? The questions go racing through your head.

Sam doesn't like to hear my car change gears very much. It is a standard, extremely powerful and very fast. Now, there is fast without much power; then there is power but not very fast. This "slightly before mid-life crisis" car is powerful and fast. At my age, there is no need for a car to sound like a muscle car when it is obviously a muscle car. There is no tweaking of the exhaust or adjusting filters to get a few more growls. You look at 20 inch rims and see this thing sitting just inches off the ground and it seems everyone....I mean everyone from Sentra, Civic, Porsche and Corvette drivers to Toyota Tundra drivers want to look over at you at a stop light and tempt you to give it a go. I wonder often if this is what the world is like for Sam at times. Does he feel like that there is so much going on and that other people are always trying to test him?

I dropped Sam at school this morning and started back to my office to work on a short film we shot a few weeks back. A young man in a four door Chevy Blazer was just itching to try and get me to go faster. Then up comes the late 20-something fellow in his four door Sentra with a bunch of funny letters next to the name making it sound more like an item on a fusion restaurant menu instead of a car. We had covered five stop lights and the little cat and mouse game continued. The road we were on had a speed limit of 45 mph and so there was no reason to give it the gas at a light just to reach a whopping 45 mph. Then, as we covered another two more lights the game became annoying. I wasn't in the mood for "mine is faster than yours." Frankly, I would have continued on this same way but these guys kept getting a little to close to me as we were going through some turns. Their cars were not made to handle like mine. All three of us had four wheels on the ground, each of us had an engine under the hood, all of us had our windows up and everybody was holding a steering wheel. The reality was this... we were nothing alike. One was a 1994 Blazer. The other was a car that some guys at my wedding actually had picked up and moved out of the way. Literally, picked up with their own hands. Then came the moment of self reflection... under my tush was a well tuned machine that was made to exceed 130+mph without any problem, the 20 inch rims have $300+ tires on each of them and they are extremely wide so that they stick to the pavement like fine glue, the entire thing can jump to over 100 mph in third gear and smiles back when it thinks you might decide to push the gas harder and even shift a few more times... I know what's under the hood and how to control it.

Sam is extremely intelligent. His mind operates much faster than mine and his insight on certain subjects makes me dream big about what he will be doing 20 years from now. As a matter of fact, Sam is a young fellow with a very powerful engine under that beautiful red hair and this makes for tricky times since he doesn't know how to control it just yet. I want to see what Sam decides to do with his life. Therefore, I didn't need either of these guys accidentally side swiping me into non-existence. It was time to get away from these fellows before an accident occurred. 0-60mph in just a few seconds and now I was about three lights ahead.

Seeing the guys waving in my rear view mirror and after realizing I was know in the clear it came to me. When things get a little strange, uncomfortable, or stressful is it not any surprise that our first inclination is to run? Sam gets very upset when someone doesn't want to go to Burger King when he wants to. He is so certain everyone else is thinking the exact same thing that he is, that it comes as a complete shock when you tell him no. It's almost like he can't help but stare at you at the light and try and make you go faster than you want to. He may scream, yell, kick, hit and tantrum for a solid 20, 30, 40 minutes and attempt upset everyone just like he did today. Since he has learned to hold things in (to some extent) around other people, he seems to save the really juicy stuff for the family. We get the wonderfully sweet Sam and we get the out of body experience that only traits of Autism can give you.

This afternoon I remembered exactly why I bought that car when I did. Our life felt out of control, we couldn't see a light at the end of the tunnel and I needed something that would take me away... even if it is only to Kroger and back.