Final Memoir for school project

​I was very nervous about our coming trip. My mom had told me for a long time what was going to happen and told me all the parts of how we would go to the airport, fly in an airplane just me and her to Texas, where I had never been before, and see Soma who would teach me how to express myself with spelling. But nothing in my life had prepared me for the real event as it was much more memorable and big than I had ever expected!
When we arrived in Texas I immediately started missing my sister and dad and the new situation made me only more anxious. The streets looked different, people were speaking with different accents, the stores looked different too. We slept in a small hotel and I had hard time sleeping there and being calm. The unknown was written on all walls, no matter how much I was trying not to look there. I don’t think I slept at all the first night as I was so nervous about my meeting next day. I simply didn’t know what to expect and this was too much to bear.
The next day finally came and we saw Soma for the first time. I immediately liked her from the very first moment we saw her. She was a small and thin woman, dressed in a long Indian dress,  but her eyes were very welcoming and she spoke with a very soft voice. She told me, “Ethan, have you ever read any of Aesop’s fables?” and she didn’t wait for a verbal answer from me as most  people do and make me feel uncomfortable, but she held the letter board in front of me and her confidence made me believe in myself and that I can spell what I thought. I immediately felt that she liked me for who I was and this feeling was so new to me. My nervous anticipation immediately disappeared and I felt home being around her. This happens so rare in my life, if ever before! Only people knowing me can understand how huge that was for me! I am so used to people staring at me, with perplexed feelings which can be so overwhelming that can even choke me. Most people don’t even try to hide it. They are just so sure that not talking means not thinking.
Soma taught me one of the Aesop’s fables and my mom was crying because I think she couldn’t believe that I was so smart and I even knew math. My lelia (aunt) was also with us and she cried with deep bright blue happy tears too. She also said that now she loves math and before she never liked it. I think the warm feeling Soma was radiating was touching them too, but also much more! They were hopeful too and sometimes hope is what we all need, but nothing else! From this day my mom and my lelia spoke about Soma all the time. I liked that because I liked Soma too and I was hopeful we would see her often.
From this day I felt as if my mom started looking at me with different eyes. I felt she was proud of me and this made me more proud of myself. If Soma and my mom believed in me I felt life may become easier for me. I felt very confident for first time in my life. I even asked Soma in our last day with her if she could write to me sometime as I didn’t want to feel ever lonely again.
All my life up until then felt like I was always behind a curtain. People were seeing me but not truly for who I was because I was always a blur for them. I felt most people were not even trying to see me or talk with me and they were not even hiding it. After the usual “Ethan, how are you”, they always started talking with my mom and ignored me for the rest of the time. Soma was first person who was speaking only to me and was expecting me to answer. She didn’t even doubt that I might not be able to answer. Up until then the word “doubt” was written in invisible but bright frame in every room I walking in, every park I went to, every airport I walked through… Doubt and prejudice were people’s favorite convenient thoughts and feeling towards me. However, the doubt started lifting up with every day since then. My life has changed forever as with time I was getting more and more comfortable writing all my thoughts which up until then were trapped inside with no any bright colorful tunnel to get out. I hope one day I can contribute with a movie written about a boy like me and more people can understand about the trapped but very meaningful world of people with non-verbal autism