Eight years ago, 10-year-old Benjamin Giroux, a boy with autism, was asked to write a poem for school titled "I Am." When his parents read it, they were so moved that they shared it on social media. The poem was soon reposted by the National Autism Association, a charity based in Barrington, on its Facebook page (@nationalautism). With the hashtag #oddtoo, the poem quickly went viral, spreading across the internet and touching thousands.
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"My 10-year-old son with Aspergers was asked to write a poem for school titled 'I Am.' He was given the first 2 words in every sentence. This is what he wrote..." Ben’s mother wrote, as per the post caption. The post, which has garnered over 48,000 likes and nearly 6000 comments, depicts the screenshot of a piece of paper with this heartwarming poem scrawled in Ben’s cursive handwriting.
Ben, a student from a school in Plattsburgh, New York, began the poem, by expressing what it feels like to live with autism, “I am odd, I am new, I wonder if you are too.” As the poem continues, he pours out the emotions and feelings of unfairness he felt, that restricted him from living life as most people do.
“I hear voices in the air
I see you don’t, and that’s not fair
I want to not feel blue
I am odd, I am new
I pretend that you are too
I feel like a boy in outer space
I touch the stars and feel out of place
I worry what others might think
I cry when people laugh, it makes me shrink
I am odd, I am new
I understand now that so are you
I say I, 'feel like a castaway'
I dream of a day that that’s okay
I try to fit in
I hope that someday I do
I am odd, I am new,” continues the poem.
People were stirred by the poem and jumped into the comment section to share their praises for the boy. @christina.k.centeno commended, “Truly awesome! This is a perfect poem; a beautiful poem written straight from the heart of a talented, amazing little boy.”
Image Source: Facebook | @unalena
@joanrifkin1 added, “What a wonderful way for this boy to share with the world what it feels like to be autistic, you are not odd, though you are a person with a unique situation and you are the best you can be. It's everyone else that is odd, they stare and poke fun at a person who is so-called the norm.” @susan.doughtery.7 spoke to Benjamin writing, “Benjamin, you are very wise to be only 10 years old. Your poem reads true to each of us. Your autism does not identify you, rather it is a part of you.”
Image Source: Facebook | @nancy.charpentier2
Like Benjamin, most people with autism usually find it hard to communicate. Herein, art can open doors for creative expression by enabling a person to communicate their emotions freely and heartily. "Ben's goal was to have people understand that being odd is different, and different is amazing, and people shouldn't be afraid of who they are," the boy’s father Sonny told TODAY. "And that makes me one proud father!"
He also said that, initially, Benjamin was anxious and nervous to read out the poem in his classroom, however nowadays, seeing that millions of people are reading his poem, he feels excited and happy, even more so after his poem led him to sign a book deal with Barnes & Nobles.
Today, Benjamin is the author of a popular book, “I am Odd, I am New.” Mike Connaris, CEO at Mcasso Music & Carnaby Blue Records, converted Ben’s poem into a song, featuring doodle animation by a student animator Rory Russell, per LBB Online.
The music video and song have won awards for Los Angeles Film Awards for “Best Student Film” and “Best Inspirational Film”, and the Hong Kong World Film Festival Award for “Best Music”, and several other accreditations, including a nomination at the British Animation Awards.
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Woman's reflection in shadow.Photo credit 
Young woman frazzled.Photo credit 
Will your current friends still be with you after seven years?
Professor shares how many years a friendship must last before it'll become lifelong
Think of your best friend. How long have you known them? Growing up, children make friends and say they’ll be best friends forever. That’s where “BFF” came from, for crying out loud. But is the concept of the lifelong friend real? If so, how many years of friendship will have to bloom before a friendship goes the distance? Well, a Dutch study may have the answer to that last question.
Sociologist Gerald Mollenhorst and his team in the Netherlands did extensive research on friendships and made some interesting findings in his surveys and studies. Mollenhorst found that over half of your friendships will “shed” within seven years. However, the relationships that go past the seven-year mark tend to last. This led to the prevailing theory that most friendships lasting more than seven years would endure throughout a person’s lifetime.
In Mollenhorst’s findings, lifelong friendships seem to come down to one thing: reciprocal effort. The primary reason so many friendships form and fade within seven-year cycles has much to do with a person’s ages and life stages. A lot of people lose touch with elementary and high school friends because so many leave home to attend college. Work friends change when someone gets promoted or finds a better job in a different state. Some friends get married and have children, reducing one-on-one time together, and thus a friendship fades. It’s easy to lose friends, but naturally harder to keep them when you’re no longer in proximity.
Some people on Reddit even wonder if lifelong friendships are actually real or just a romanticized thought nowadays. However, older commenters showed that lifelong friendship is still possible:
“I met my friend on the first day of kindergarten. Maybe not the very first day, but within the first week. We were texting each other stupid memes just yesterday. This year we’ll both celebrate our 58th birthdays.”
“My oldest friend and I met when she was just 5 and I was 9. Next-door neighbors. We're now both over 60 and still talk weekly and visit at least twice a year.”
“I’m 55. I’ve just spent a weekend with friends I met 24 and 32 years ago respectively. I’m also still in touch with my penpal in the States. I was 15 when we started writing to each other.”
“My friends (3 of them) go back to my college days in my 20’s that I still talk to a minimum of once a week. I'm in my early 60s now.”
“We ebb and flow. Sometimes many years will pass as we go through different things and phases. Nobody gets buttsore if we aren’t in touch all the time. In our 50s we don’t try and argue or be petty like we did before. But I love them. I don’t need a weekly lunch to know that. I could make a call right now if I needed something. Same with them.”
Maintaining a friendship for life is never guaranteed, but there are ways, psychotherapists say, that can make a friendship last. It’s not easy, but for a friendship to last, both participants need to make room for patience and place greater weight on their similarities than on the differences that may develop over time. Along with that, it’s helpful to be tolerant of large distances and gaps of time between visits, too. It’s not easy, and it requires both people involved to be equally invested to keep the friendship alive and from becoming stagnant.
As tough as it sounds, it is still possible. You may be a fortunate person who can name several friends you’ve kept for over seven years or over seventy years. But if you’re not, every new friendship you make has the same chance and potential of being lifelong.