Highgate tube station. For me, it will forever represent the foothills of Isaac’s future. For him, it’s the sunlit uplands.

A young man bouncing up the escalators, a dad bound to the bottom. The one-shot, single take of a biopic telling two stories of Isaac taking his first steps into solo travel.

He’s up, over the top and out of sight, the world his Oyster Card. Striding to the bus stop I imagine, hope, pray.

I hover with bother, underground. ‘Find my iPhone’ goes in and out of reception; my heartbeat, its mystical modem.

There is a happy beginning.

I exit the station at the seven-minute mark that he’s stipulated, as, “at that point in time, I’ll be out of your sight, Matty. I’ll have boarded the 402 bus for school and tapped in with my Oyster card you must top up. It arrives at 8:02. Please track me, but no whatsapping, I’ll be too busy being independent. Yes, yes??!!”

(Matty, by the way, is how Isaac now insists he addresses me. It’s what close family call me – there’s a logic, naturally. I could shed a tear over this – fellow parents imagine me to be ever so slightly winded. And I indulged in some introspection when recently hearing Lord Simon Woolley, Politician and Activist, on Desert Island Discs, wish that he had addressed his foster father as dad, as that confirms the paternal bond. His experience is clearly a world apart from mine though. Somehow this show of unorthodox assertion by Isaac is a declaration of his love. Not to mention his particular brand of young adulthood. Also, it’s just quite amusing.)

Of course, Isaac executes his module one of independence – the partial travelling to school alone for the first time – with distinction. Rapidly logging stops and impending arrivals via the family Whatsapp group with real time bus tracker-app accuracy and lingo.

The next day: Part two. He takes the tube alone, passing with flying colours. The fully fledged solo traveller soars in spirit. Leaves the house by himself, tick. Tube, tick. Bus, tick. “Dot matrix bus sign, top of the hill for ‘just-after’ sunrise, 8:13 am school into view” his embedded beats to his day providing the most reassuring rhythm. He arrives joyously and sashays through the school gates, the biggest damn tick of all.

Travel training that’s been part of his school’s Life Skills has led to this moment. I’d observed for some time, and school concurred, that he had the road skills of an over-qualified lollipop lady; no (street) corners cut when right-left-righting, whether busy main roads or sleepy side ones. Traffic lights, zebra crossings, street signs – he knows them as well as every bus, tube, train time and line that have been so documented. Politeness and interacting with the public appropriately he’s practiced to perfection.

But with Isaac, you can only infer his direction of travel when it comes to learning and, more importantly, confidence. He cognitively builds step by step by step. He’s an all or nothing kind of guy. Needing complete human attachment for all trips wherever, whenever; however I frame little nudges of freedom. And then, when you least expect it, he takes a leap. All in. Ready to hit the road. Alone.

Of course, a road safety whizz he may be, but who can vouch for speedy cars?

And as for bad people – he’s drilled to do the right thing. But still.

My worries won’t let up but they will lessen. That’s parenthood, autism or not.

Actually, his desire for me to track him at all times is very untypical for a 16-year-old – but very welcome. Travelling after dark is also, for now, a no-no, “I must not see people vomiting on my beautiful moquette pattern tube seats.”

Soon he’s returning home on his own too. Despite my underestimating of his fine motor skills, he masters using the house key, that he places religiously in a special slot in his bag. Spatial awareness progressing.

And then, not long after, a problem.

“Matty, there’s an emergency, I’m at Highgate Station. You must come now. There are no other dangerous teenagers involved, but the situation needs resolving. Now. Please!”

This half story to me, is a full one to him and clearly needs addressing – I’m well-tuned to that urgent diction and tone. It feels like more than a hiccup; I hold my breath and perform a U turn (fortunately I’m driving nearby). Before, like a first responder, smashing Islington’s 20 mph limits (the breaking of limits would bother him; that I’m rushing to see him wouldn’t) and am there within minutes.

The scene is more calm than carnage. Isaac is hopping about like a lost tourist, speaking a language no-one understands. Whilst the Station Manager is trying to wave Isaac through the open barrier, knowing that, for some reason, it’s a lost cause.

“Matty, at last!! Now look, this is a kind gentleman, I’m not being rude. But my oyster card will not work. It makes the fail sound. I can’t go anywhere!!”

And so, it transpires that the barriers aren’t working, are therefore open, with the technology not logging, and charges not being administered.

It’s calamitous for Isaac. Too much to process, he can’t proceed. If the barriers ‘beep’ that you can’t go through, you can’t go through.

The invisible force of logic holding him back, literally.

Delays, trains stuck in sidings, ‘all change pleases’, he’s had a lifetime to get his head round, digest, get energised by. This, however, is unprecedented, it shocks and scares.

The only way to diffuse the situation is to change mode of transport. We drive silently home.

He will ask every minute of every hour throughout the evening whether I think the barriers are now fixed – “on a rating of 1 to 10, will they work tomorrow?” My faith in the maintenance team of TFL may be foolish, but I go for 10 every time.

This questioning continues every morning and evening for days and weeks.

What the broken barrier doesn’t do is derail in any way his new identity of independence. That’s now fully formed. He is Isaac the Independent. Like a transformed Superhero, there’s no going back. It’s a good thing. Great even.

He travels proud and alone. I’m persona non grata, an embodiment of all those years of dependence. Even when we go to the same place, now we get there separately. So be it. I am bereft; I climbed the greasy pole from trainspotting guardian through to runner on his YouTube film shoots. But those thousands of hours have paid off.

Isaac the Independent is predominantly about travel – a tangible life skill he can deliver on daily. But if bossing transport is the Queen Bee of his flowering identity, there is a loyal band of workers, that are following suit. Similar solid skills that can slot easily into his routine. Like waking up and getting himself ready for school and out the door.

Old habits of marshalling us into his early mornings die hard. But as with travel, he goes from me obeying his morning orders of wake-up times and breakfast sous-cheffing, overnight.

I sense the patience and brilliance of school:

“Matty, tomorrow my alarm. MY alarm, not you knocking on my door, will alert at 648 am. I will listen to music till 7 am. The final song being Party Rock Anthem by LMFAO to give me energy. Then I will have shreddies with milk and a glass of water. Privacy when I get dressed, please. I will leave at 7:32 with my lunchbox and water. Please do my lunch now, pitta and Aldi smoked salmon of course.”

Which is how his school days play out, affording us extraordinary liberation and giving him agency of a controlled predictability. Plus, for us a focus on his tween, sleepy-head sister, who is no friend of mornings, let alone early rises.  

The water bottle filled and placed in an identical in the fridge at 10pm the night before is the next bit of autonomy. Before integrating having a bath into his bedtime routine; without-help-turning-on-and-off, drained, room tidily left; at the same time (to the minute) each night, allowing for hot water and his sister to do her teeth before. No interruption, discussion or involvement. He is Isaac the Independent after all. In quick succession, we have clothes laid out, laundry taken down, devices charged.

Making lunch remains the naughty, wavering worker of his identity. More rules, hazards, spatial challenges, sensory issues, means he’s not there yet. Which means agitating me during the evening to make sure it’s prepared correctly and placed in the fridge. Texts cascade in if I’m out, concerned for when I’ll be back – to ensure lunch box peace of mind.

A pincer movement of food tech at school, Eliza at home, and his own obsession of food YouTube, means the foodie skills in all forms are building and building in his brain. Awareness of temperatures and textures. Ingredient and appliance usage. But, as said, when he takes plunges is as unpredictable as knowing that when he does, he’ll want to do it without a sliver of help, is predictable.

In the meantime, rather lamely I butter his pitta and boil boring pasta like a ropey butler. Too in thrall to the all or nothing Isaac, myself in the kitchen proper a far too rare sight also. Whereas Eliza, the chief enabler of Isaac the Independent, in all guises, can cajole, get him collaborating in the kitchen, show the ways of the dishwasher, gently persuade.

All in all, Isaac the Independent thrives, applying rules to specific and concrete skills, all within this aura of travelling by himself.

There’s a bit of a ‘but’ though.

An emerging end game for Isaac the Independent, is the social animal in him. If his military managing of himself – and moving from A to B – is the means, the end is his meeting up with others.

Travel is huge, a liberation and a love, of course. But so is socialising. And that is one of life’s skills that follows no such rules and regulations. On the contrary.

The confusion of neurotypical behaviours too often leaves Isaac crestfallen.

The abstract and awkward to quantify broad brush strokes of sociability plague him. The dipping in, off beat back-and-forth-ness in conversations. The replying ‘as and when’ to messages. Signal reading. Sarcasm. Overtalking.

Loose arrangements to meet up tighten him with anxiety. Supercharging it. Better to not meet up at all.

Someone responding in a well-meaning and well-intentioned manner can leave Isaac winded and inconsolable:

“He says he’s free to chat any day, pretty much. This is ridiculous, when is any day, how can that be a day, it’s too much for me Matty.”

A spiral of uncertainty is set free. Dizzy with despair. All relationships are full of jeopardy for Isaac. A lack of what he deems basics are baffling.

The cryptic nature of people crushes him. The most out of reach of crosswords, even if a clue was somehow located, he wouldn’t have the pencil.

His crew of cousins watch out for him, chat, mix and josh with him.

But, as he has said, none of them is autistic.

“My mind works differently!!”

It’s an agitated refrain, used more and more. I have an instinct to bat off this potentially harmful labelling. Swat it, soothe things over.

However, it is a lodestar for autism acceptance when the everyday experience of someone like Isaac owns it and says it. To coin contemporary chit chat, it is Isaac’s truth. And there’s a clarity he’s uncovered in his own mind:

My interpretation – backed up by school – being that where neurotypical people learn socialising by osmosis, Isaac seeks fully overt teaching. Until that intricate and protracted process has played out fully, like it did for travel, he’s restless and expectant, sometimes muddled, often stubborn. On edge, upset, disbelieving. At times, inconsolable.

But just as he is working on this, it’s important we work to see things through his eyes too. There is no set way to socialise. My gratitude to the collective and family learning is immense. His close aunts, uncles and cousins in Australia are on top of time changes and planned calls. (“Why do they live so far away??” He cannot reason with this fact.)

Sometimes it does feel like we’re all lab rats, with debatable success rates. He wins the wider family over; they adapt and enter his own world. On joint terms. The point is, there is so much to take from Isaac the Independent and his unique social mores – right now.

Sociability is something he has his huge heart so firmly set on. That he can execute in tandem with travel. Seeing people, hanging out, dates in diaries. And bless him, he isn’t giving in.

Indeed, socialising is one of the motifs of independence and growing up; and he actually aces at the bits many humans are abysmal at. That’s a big deal that daily bangs me over the head; I love this difference in him and find it difficult too.

The fact it, Isaac is a walking, talking Debretts-type etiquette expert; a masterful Mr. Meet and Greet, planner lover, questioner and answerer, and all-round curator of (slightly self-imposed) conversations. Enhancer of environments.

Neighbours have registered Isaac’s jolly and wordy interactions as bright spots in bleak days (and times). The floundering High Street has a daily fillip in the shape of Isaac with the barber and coffee shop owner always mentioning his morning waves, querying and unique politeness. For moments in days, Isaac’s bidding of hellos and farewells bring a 1950s villagey feel to a frankly postmodern urbany Britain.

Like little vitamin D drops, these mini-chats sunny up Isaac’s day too. As do his “52 WhatsApp contacts, who I may message at set times and days, Matty – they don’t mind!!”

With the diligence of an overkeen HR professional, Isaac seeks out consistent ‘catch-ups’ with cousins, friends, old and young, and asks them how they are, what they’re doing; is jocular and gently bolsters. It’s a constructed and adhered to sociability that he can control, set parameters for, follow a pattern – and it’s authentic to the core.

These fine details of friendship warm my heart and, I feel, others’ too. They also paint a vivid picture of his school behaviour. A small group of like-minded students, shining socially, thanks to empathetic educators. If Isaac had his way, he’d be in his school setting, 24/7. With predictability, friendship and dialogue agendas set and followed at all times.

He does meet up with school chums on odd weekends, which is always a roaring success. I witness polite discussions that don’t jump this way and that, but follow a pattern like a never-ending word association game. Linear, joke telling by Isaac, repetition keeping regulation and the Isaac show on the road. Formality. Always formal. “I commend you on your delivery of the joke Isaac. It was in fact better than the joke itself.” “Many thanks, I appreciate your honesty and kindness.” The nuggets I eavesdrop on are uplifting.

Isaac’s gathering for his sixteenth birthday was a golden time for him. The best day ever. Where his school friends ate cake, played pool, respected one another. His speech, where he wanted to “show my appreciation for the friend who helped me with independence,” and received, “a very big thank you, Isaac, for walking to the shops with me,” was blockbuster.

It’s a small group, however. Each individual with their own structures and strictures; some are independent, some are not. How and where they socialise varies.

Which means Isaac has open-ended weekends. Trains and missions are plotted. Facetimes booked in. Obeyance of his-turn-your-turn rigidity by comprehending family.

“The weekends ruin everything,” Isaac wept at me recently. Winded by another non-specific commitment that couldn’t be confirmed. He can’t take cancellations on the chin. But he is beginning to battle through the bouts of anxiety this brings.

Because as we stand on the cusp of Christmas, taking each day as we can (possibly each hour), the vision of Isaac the Independent is what stands out. Bold and in block capitals, like the meet ups with cousins writ large on the kitchen blackboard (don’t even think about rubbing them out, blackboard eraser.)

He gazes at them and whoops to the world with joy. Travelling solo is his big achievement of the year. A day without plans can teeter into the positive with a train trip and sandwich pick up. He is learning to almost reframe empty days without seeing people, as full days of independence. Have we gone full Circle (line). As I say, each day…

Highgate will always be Isaac’s sunlit uplands. And despite the ups and downs being as squiggly as the underground itself, he’s kept motoring independently ever since.

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