I'd really like to be a marine biologist, I've realized... but that isn't going to work with my severe sensory issues with things like cold, the transition from dry to wet, and pressure changes.
I might like to be an actress - I love to "play" as different characters in my head, I just don't have the confidence to actually do it, in front of anyone. But even if I could get over that, it wouldn't work with my speech difficulties and trouble properly showing emotion with facial expressions.
So instead, I get stuck with part-time cleaning jobs, when I have any employment at all, because no other places will hire me
I do kind of wonder what my life would be like if I wasn't autistic. Would I be one of those things, or would I be a veterinarian like I'd originally intended? Or would my non-autism-related challenges leave me in much the same position I'm currently in?
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Yet in my new wildness and freedom I almost welcome the bitterness of alienage. For although nepenthe has calmed me, I know always that I am an outsider; a stranger in this century and among those who are still men.
-H. P. Lovecraft, "The Outsider"