Illogimoting

illogimoting v. to feel and behave in a way that contradicts or does not match what you intellectually understand perfectly; when your emotions undermine your intellectual authority; when your instinctive emotional response to a situation does not accurately reflect reality 

The emotionary

If I were on the spectrum, (which of course I am, everybody is) this whole idea of ‘illogimoting’, not to mention the bastardisation of a proper word, would be rather more inconceivable than today, I find it it be.

Of course, for those on the far right of the imaginary line where Jonah represents a little flinty notch where black is autism and white its empathetic opposite, it makes no sense but to act in accordance with established logic. But for me, today, I find myself quite at ease with this doublethink.

…

“Good morning” was the first thing Jonah said to Ava this morning when his alarm woke him at 5 to 7. For a child historically bad at salutations, this represents progress, and pays testament to my persistence with addressing him politely, each and every day, despite the expectation of being met with a wall of silence, tantrum or diatribe about a DS game. Yes, I thought. It is a good morning.

Someone once said to me – it was Natasha, bridesmaid at my wedding, fellow ex- journalist, long term friend, and once, in another life, the object of my fleeting ardour, over a bottle of wine- she said that if she ever got so low that suicide felt like a good option, she would just change her life. Flee the country. Become a stand up comedian, anything because failing to give the smallest of fucks represents the ultimate freedom.

I don’t think I ever quite got there. I will always care what the world thinks of me, not least for the sake of my kids, and also because I’m a judgemental cow myself. But things had gone a bit dark side for a while., and maybe, just maybe, I’m losing the will to give a fuck.

But the sun’s come out, and I don’t mean literally. Maybe, I’m in holiday humour. I pack tomorrow for a week’s staycation at Grandma Kat’s on the coast, where my sister, who lives close by, is taking time off too, to spend with us and her nearly 2 year old daughter. We’ll have some nice days out – Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, the romantic Arundel Castle and Peppa Pig world.

But it’s more than that, and I might not be feeling quite sane, coz it feels too good to be true, and as I told Jonah this morning, when he tried to get me to click on some app promising free bitcoins or something or other, that if feels too good to be true, it definitely is, following this up with, “there’s no such thing as a free lunch”, which in Jonah’s unidiomatic semantics would make absolutely no sense at all given that he gets his lunch for free everyday.

I digress. But the other truism, so beloved of parents foisting their lovesick daughter on the higher education system in a town away from her brickie boyfriend, is never base your happiness around another person. But that’s got to be bullshit. We all do it all the time. That’s what society is meant to be for, isn’t it.

Anyway, I met someone. We like each other. That’s alright, isn’t it?

Definition courtesy of Emotionary