Whispers in the dark

That’s what I’m doing right now isn’t it? Whispering into the dark? No one can see me, and you can only hear me if you pay attention. It’s a defense mechanism. 100%. Its an effective one at that.

I purposely share of myself in a way that only those who really want to hear what I have to say have to listen. I’m constantly worried that I’m boring people, or upsetting people, or keeping people from things they would rather be doing. To compensate for and hide that little anomaly about myself I take a back seat in life, waiting for people to come to me, to let me know they are interested in what I have to say, and only then do I open my mouth.

Even this. No one asked me to write this blog, but it’s like talking in an empty room with the door wide open. If someone walks by and is interested in what I am saying they are free to enter and even join in if they like. I love comments, even the negative ones. They show me people are reading, and give me an insight into what people might enjoy.

This is a struggle for me, and I’m treating this like my diary from day to day, discussing what’s on my mind and trying to organize the way I feel about things. I put it on the web because knowing I’m not alone helps me drastically and I’d like to think I provide the same for at least a few other people. I have gotten an email or two thanking me, so I must be doing something right. For those who aren’t comfortable with that, that’s alright too. I’m glad you are reading anyway.

My mind is running in circles, this is a lot to process in a short amount of time. That mental disorganization sometimes comes across here and if I seem a little inconsistent I apologize, if there is a particular aspect of the blog or type of entry you enjoy let me know and I’ll see what I can do. Otherwise I’m sure the topic or genre will come back around if you watch for it. I express myself constantly and in many ways, but I can be a little spotty about the application. Keeping up with my brain is a full time job that keeps creating backlog.

Cheers.

Whats Missing?

They say I can’t be happy unless I have lots of friends and acquaintances with which to pass the time. They say I can’t be happy, spending most of my time hidden away in my apartment from the rest of the world. They say I can’t be happy locked inside my head thinking away the afternoon. They say I need more. What do they know? I wouldn’t know how to be happy any other way.

I tried it their way for years, all it did was make me anxious and miserable. All those friends and no time to get to know any of them, a full time job I hated, and me faking a smile when I could be half assed bothered to concentrate on it. The days disappeared one after the other with never enough time for the things I needed to do and needed to think about. It was all too much so I stopped pretending but now that I have everything I need they tell me it’s not enough. Why do they only see the things I don’t have, and never the things I do.

I have a beautiful daughter whom I have raised well. She is a shining example of acceptance and tolerance. I can’t remember the last time she threw a fit, when she wants something she approaches me calmly and rationally. She knows I am almost always willing to negotiate. I know we will have our rough spots over the next few years as she becomes a teenager, but we have excellent communication skills that should serve us well.

I have a wonderful, caring, understanding boyfriend. Although he doesn’t always get why I feel the way I do, he is willing to take it at face value that I do and accommodates me to the best of his ability. He values my honesty and candor about the things I need, and communicates his own needs very effectively as well. He is my social buffer when circumstances warrant a trip outside. He nurtures the little girl that I am inside and yet respects me for the adult that I am. He gives me my space when I need it and understands that it’s not a slight against him, that I am just preoccupied sometimes and its best to let me be. Many of the things he loves the most about me can be directly attributed to having AS.

I have a quick and attentive mind to the things that interest me. I don’t jump to conclusions without doing my research, and I don’t open my mouth unless I have something valid to say. I am the first to admit when I am wrong and the last to back down when I am right and it matters to me. I can be stubborn and hard headed but only about the opinions I am sure of, and I have no desire to force those opinions on someone else. I am willing to share the information that I have, but by no means do I expect blind compliance, I prefer for people to take what I say and come to their own conclusions. I often see the connections between things that others are missing in the big picture. My advice is well respected.

I have a best friend who understands me in a way no one else does. She also has AS so we are able to bounce problems and ideas off of each other with no worries about judgment. We don’t chat about the weather or spend hours on the phone discussing our crushes. We do have each other’s back no matter what, and when no one else understands its time for a visit.

I have a phenomenal grasp of the English language, and the ability to inspire emotion through my writing when I am in turn inspired to do so. I can just as easily write a professional business letter as a journal and I also write poetry and other creative pieces. I have been receiving high quantities of praise from respected individuals about this talent for years. Having a computer allows me to share my writing with a much greater audience without the pressure of having to socialize face to face.

I have friends who don’t expect anything beyond our friendship. We care about each other and even if we go weeks, months, sometimes years without speaking we know it doesn’t change that. If they need me and there is something I can provide they know where to find me, and vice versa.

I am happy and fulfilled. What exactly am I missing?

To the music in her mind..

She dances alone in a clearing full of eyes all alight with wisdom and understanding if only they could see her. They cant, she covers her own eyes to keep it inside thinking that if she cant see them they cant see her, and she’s right. What they see isn’t here, its nothing but a shallow veneer wrought of lilacs and ivy woven tight with thorns to prick the unwary and keep a million tiny pieces trapped inside. Pieces that she has painstakingly collected through time untold and clutched in the tiny fists that beat against the chest of humanity.

Its not a simple as they think nor as hard as they imagine to dance beside her, but the vision they behold blends and wavers between this world and another baffling their concept of reality and truth. Frightened by what they can’t understand they watch on and the whispered songs they should have heard from the dawn of this act vanish beneath the din of observation and judgment. Still she dances, uncaring that lines are blurring and unmindful of the storms that are brewing overhead. This is her time, and her place, and they cannot really see her after all. They could dance beside her but the very nature of their world holds them back.

She falls exhausted to the dirt at her feet and carelessly they rush to her side, words of solace and pity that grate through her veins, burning her with the intensity of their desperate advice. Clenched fists that they would see this fall as weakness, this need to stop and catch her breath as impairment, did they not see her dance? Surely if they had they would know she deserves this moment in the dust, the sweat that glistens on her skin, the pounding heart that threatens to burst from her chest. They didn’t, they saw nothing but the tears and anguish of a child too afraid to reach out and take their hand, too lost in her own dreams to even see that they only want to help her understand. They cannot see that its not she that needs to understand.

Why can they only see her here she wonders, when she lies in the ashes of her own humanity too weak to rise and greet the song that plays endlessly through her mind, and her tears begin to soak the fallow earth that cradles her prone body. Mired in a net of judgment and evaluation she could drown in her own thoughts as they try to surge past her lips in a torrent of explanation, only to be lost in the stream of labels and opinions that pour from their mouths. Careless definitions cast forth in an attempt to find a way to keep her here, in this world, where they can see her. She rises to her feet and though she still cries she smiles and turns away, shrugging off those hands that seek to bind her to this reality. There is nothing for her here but dust and ashes, and so she starts to dance again, hoping against hope but knowing better, that this time they will finally open their eyes and witness the peace this dance brings her.

State of Mind

I have to be honest; I can’t do this any other way. I have to admit that I’m frightened of the shadows that lurk at the edges of understanding and acceptance where it was once my solace to hide and wait and watch. Now I’ve hurled myself from the darkness and into the blinding light of the fire where all the weaknesses I fought to smother for so long can be picked apart and scrutinized in the hopes that reassembled these tiny fragments can be stronger as a whole. I feel like a blind man who has learned to see, still fearful of stumbling and falling over the stone blocks that are scattered here and there that I now know are simply features in my garden and not the traps I once thought them to be. I can see them, I know what they are, and yet I can’t help but be wary that another will spring up that I have never seen. There are so many things I couldn’t see before now.

I am at a crossroads, and yet there are no other roads but for the direction I am already traveling. I started on this path a long time ago, and I have gone too far to retrace my steps now to become something other than what I am, a frustrated little girl who is locked in a struggle between wanting her turn for show and tell and fearing the class will laugh when she shares what she has found. Pockets full of sparkling pebbles and bits of beach glass, marbles and pennies, pinecones and buttons; she sits quietly at the back of the class endlessly moving them between her fingertips, hoping against hope that her name isn’t called. Hoping against hope that it is so that maybe she can think about other things and find the rest of the pieces she needs to put herself back together.


My desire to share of myself runs deep and contrary to my inability to take part in this sharing with others. Locked behind this screen of thorns there is a measure of safety, and yet what am I really sharing of myself without that human connection, I may as well be talking to a mirror. I wander through this amazing garden of ideas and thoughts that has always existed in my mind attempting to plot its twists and turns in the hopes that someday I can make the world understand, and yet somehow I know they never will. I can’t shake it, this desire to communicate; it’s the bane of my existence. Few and far between are the people who understand enough to spend time in my world and yet that driving need compels me to throw open the doors to one part or another of my soul and invite the world in, for better or worse. Most end up lost and bewildered in a very short time. Some few understand and respond, and for these I am truly grateful because every single person who understands makes me feel a little less alone.

I have accepted this into my life, but one detail remains, and there it sits again at one detail that locks my mind and my heart into this eternal struggle to define what matters. One person’s opinion and faith in my ability to see inside my own mind in a way that no other could fathom. One heartstring stretched to its limit and the rise and fall of unconditional love left hanging in the balance. One person, what matters their opinion in the grand scheme of things. Nothing, and yet everything when their acceptance is all you have ever wanted. Without it I have no idea how to move on from here.