The awesomely indifferent advantures of Gavin Conrad

When I was about 5 or 6, I recall looking out from the kitchen of my parent’s house, out towards my brother and father in the backyard practicing golf. My brother took a liking to sports right away at a young age. I didn’t understand sports as much. But at the time I could see his interest attracted my father’s attention, because my father was once to be a golf pro. I remember seeing them daily, outside, hitting balls from one end of the yard to the other. My brother even had his own clubs.

From the eyes and ears of a 6 year old with autism, it appeared to me they had their own language. They shared many terms that they kept repeating like ‘birdy,’ ‘eagle,’ ‘chip-shot,’ ‘fair-way.’ The sports didn’t interest me as much as the language they shared. I thought if I could somehow crack their code, I was in. I could possibly gain some sort of relationship with my father besides the typical “hugging” (which I didn’t like much at all being sensitive to touch). It also didn’t help that I had sensitivity to light and sound.

Being outside for me was like being in a sauna (we lived in Florida after all) and sunlight was so harsh on my eyes that color tones would turn to a pale shade of greenish blue after a while. To compensate I squinted a lot to block out the excess light my eyes failed to adjust to, making my face hurt as well and making me look angry. So I would retreat to the living room. Playing with my robots and other toys that I liked taking apart.

I never actually thought about all of this until my brother mentioned something about “distant fathers” recently. Impossible for me to understand how I would become the way I am, and my brother another way, if dad was distant to both of us in the same way. But I realized he wasn’t distant to both.

There are lots of memories of my mother, and her friends. I have lots of memories of my uncle as well (who lived with us for a while). Memories of my father are scattered and few. I find myself wondering if maybe part of me was holding something back for a reason. Reading online, I came across articles explaining how the brain has mechanisms to repress memories, and for a reason.

In defense of my father — he did try to show me attention in whatever endeavor I would find myself pursuing. Computers, robots, electronics, software. But those hobbies changed all the time, along with my tastes. And I guess he couldn’t keep up. So we had no middle ground to meet up on. Not like my brother, who was dedicated to his sport.

Even now I’m still mystified by the “Bird Language.” I hear it on the Golf Channel, from others, the Internet.

It still haunts me daily.

Gavin