Remember the rule for school days: only one accessory, so you can choose either the bow tie or the beanie, Aidan.”
We didn’t have your typical four-year-old. When other children were listening to Raffi or the Wiggles, Aidan was a veritable expert on the catalogs of the Rolling Stones, the Who, the Beatles, and Queen. When most preschoolers were learning about shapes, colors, and the ABCs, Aidan was voraciously reading about paleontology, the history of computers, and his favorite obsession—the table of elements. As other little boys threw on their favorite super hero t-shirts or brightly colored Gymboree ensembles dotted with dinosaurs and firetrucks, Aidan was insistent on a wardrobe that looked like it had been plucked from a Portland hipster.
Aidan lived in a world of his own creation, entirely unaware of the ways he was so different from his peers. In truth, it’s because Aidan was unable to identify that he had a peer group at all.