A handful of tomatoes

Friday wasn't an easy day. It wasn't crap, it wasn't bad. It was just tricky.

When I had my Asperger's assessment in April, the psychologist asked me if I was obsessed with clocks and the time. I said I wasn't. That's because I thought I wasn't.

But ever since she asked me that I've been thinking about it and I realise I am. I just didn't know it because I hadn't had to think about it before.

Time whizzes past me and away from me and I am always trying to snatch it to keep it and to slow it down. I often wish I could stop time and reset the clocks to a speed that suits me.

I write lists and often write times by which I think I should have done things. I look at the time when I start something and I look at the time when I've finished something and I beat myself up about how long it took me.

When I'm tired or overloaded and feel I have a lot to catch up on, my lists help me get through the day.

On Friday I knew time was not my friend so I wrote a small, short list, but I still failed.

Life can be very frustrating living on a time that seems to belong to everyone else but doesn't belong to me. So, yes, I am obsessed with time. Completely.

I felt the day escaping and saw the sun start to move away from the garden and began to panic. I rushed everything I did and became clumsy and accident-prone. I forced myself to make a cake with Tess, but I bumped my head on a corner of the kitchen wall, I stubbed my toe and I dropped things. When the cake was in the oven and I tried to tidy up, I felt things slipping from my grasp and shouted at life to stop picking on me.

It was 5 o'clock. The day was nearly over and I didn't know quite where it had gone.

I made myself a tea. I took it outside. I tried to contain my feelings.
Richard and Joel came home from work. Joel's GCSE English retake results were waiting from him. He'd passed. Hooray.

I went for a walk with Richard. I picked some home grown tomatoes.
I smiled at the different colours in my hand, at the evening sun on the table.


I knew that this is just how it is.

I made dinner.
The cake was good.