Origami Flowers

My wedding is in just a few days.  Preparations are still underway, but I wanted to comment on one of the many eccentricities of this particular wedding.  I will have no live flowers as decorations for any part of the wedding.  This is partly for humanitarian reasons, but perhaps most clearly to me right now, it's because of who I am.

I am autistic.  I do not, and never will, fit well into society.  This isn't my fault.  I was born this way, and I've done my best to make things easier for everyone around me.  But it is a thing, and one I'm keenly aware of most days.  I feel, sometimes, that because of that, I am less of a person.  An alien, or subhuman.

The HBO movie Temple Grandin, based on the esteemed Dr. Grandin's childhood, posits that people like me are "different, not less."  That revelation, and my diagnosis itself, were painful realizations in my life, and ones I have struggled long and hard to make beliefs, rather than simply ideas.  Just because I am different does not mean I should automatically be less than human.  But it's really hard to believe that when you have to struggle so hard just to seem acceptable to those around you.

So it's in the name of this blog, Realistic Autistic.  I feel not quite real, not quite human.  Lifelike, realistic, but not quite true to life, not quite real.  It's also in these flowers.

I could have, I suppose, opted for fake flowers: plastic or silk recreations of the intricate blooms and plants that we so treasure.  But this wedding seems, at least to me, a way to show people who I am and what I've become.  Plastic and silk are too close to real flowers.  They can be mistaken for real flowers, if the observer isn't astute or isn't paying attention.

Origami flowers cannot be so mistaken.  Particularly these, made of foil and paper, the stems of twisted wire and floral tape.  They have their own style, grace, and delicacy.  And they are shaped, at least somewhat, like the true flowers.  Each of these origami flowers are painstakingly folded, taking time, precision, and effort.  Each flower did not simply grow, given the right conditions.  It had to be shaped, attention paid at every step, for the final result to be like a flower.

For at least one day, I'd like people to appreciate these origami flowers for what they are: very different than what they're patterned after, but possessing their own beauty.

Am I not, after all, still a worthwhile person?  Will I not be beautiful, too?