Music is My Boyfriend, My Girlfriend, and Autistically Powerful

I have almost 13,000 songs in my iTunes library.

You read that right. 13,000 songs.

You're probably wondering who the hell could listen to that much music in one lifetime. Well, I can. Or at least I can listen to my playlist of favorite songs over and over again. That playlist has over 2,000 songs and grows by the day. Put it on shuffle and I could always hear something different over five and a half days and not get bored. I constantly search for the newest and most interesting stuff and make playlists upon playlists of my findings. It pumps me up when I need encouragement and calms me down in times of trouble. And from the Walkman to the gift from the gods known as the iPod, I've never gone anywhere my music to listen to.

It's common for autistic people to have an incredible amount of passion in their favorite subjects to the point of developing expertise in them. This is known as having a "special interest", leading to autistic people being called "little professors". Like all things considering autism, it isn't universal across the spectrum but I've seen it more than enough times to understand how people come to that conclusion. I've got a plethora of these "special interests", and while I wouldn't call myself a genius in any of them I certainly keep up with them a bit more than your average bear.

But music isn't what I'd call a special interest of mine. I'm not a musician, although I have played piano and clarinet in the past. Music just helps me understand life and the world as we know it.