Here’s a fun fact about my childhood. When I was around 8 years old, I was obsessed with 8-track cassette tapes.
I distinctly remember how fascinated I was by them, ever since my mom gave me her old tapes as a kid. I recall riding around in my grandma’s old Oldsmobile listening to her Beach Boys album on 8-track. At one point, I went to the library asking for books on them, and the librarian on site was absolutely dumbfounded that this tiny girl was so preoccupied with these ugly bulky-ass tapes. I wanted to collect more and more, even though collecting vintage media wouldn’t be “cool” for another decade or so.
There’s the issue. None of this was cool, especially not to my peers. I’d already cycled through obsessions with Bon Jovi and parakeets. I didn’t need something else making me even weirder to my classmates. So I made the decision to hide my excitement about 8-track tapes and quietly let my obsession fade.
In other words, I masked.
I’ve talked a little about masking in past blog posts, but it bears repeating. Many autistic folks feel the need to hide parts of themselves to fit in with the rest of society, and if I’m honest, it’s exhausting. It’s especially prevalent among autistic women, who often experience burnout from having to mask so much. For me, it was meticulously studying the way other people interacted with each other and mimicking that to the best of my ability.
So imagine how secretly tickled I was when, during my last audio engineering class, the entire lecture was about magnetic tape. In other words, the technology behind 8-track tapes! This was the exact information I was seeking when I went to the library all those years ago!
People ask me all the time, “Hey Jessa, how do you heal your inner child?” Okay, I lied, no one has ever asked me that. But if they did, I’d tell them to explore the interests they had as a kid. Remember your dinosaur phase? Get to the library and get a fuckin’ book on velociraptors! Did you want to be a mermaid? Study mermaid mythology and invest in some nautical decor! Were you a horse girl? It’s high time you get some ridin’ lessons! Throw yourself into the thing you loved most as a kid. That’s the purest joy you can achieve — making the part of you that never grew up happy.
I think there’s a reason why so many people my age collect Funko Pops and play video games or watch cartoons for fun. We’re constantly trying to make our inner child happy in some way or another. I’m learning how to care for mine the same way I would care for the child version of me if I met her. Little-Jessa had to hide her fascination with vintage audio equipment to be accepted, but Adult-Jessa is picking up where she left off. It feels like I’m coming home to a hobby I long left abandoned. It feels good, man.
JESSA JOYCE 