Day: February 22, 2012

Day Twenty-Four: Life is Like a Roller Rink (and a letter from LV)

| Aspergers Girls

 

February 22, 2012

My Dearest Samantha,

Here are a few things you need to get straight. You are a loving being, and humble enough. Don’t pray for any more humility, please, because you already know where that gets you. Take your husband’s advice, and ask for more pride, for goodness sake!

And don’t eat frozen carrot cake by the fork-full when you’re stressed out; it’s not good for the system, or that spare tire you’ve got going around your waist. Thanks to you, we’ve got this non-stop, hacking cough, because YOU shoveled the cake so fast a nut scratched your throat. Thirty minutes later, after a cough suppressant, Benadryl, and cough drop, you’re still coughing. And so loudly, you’ve concerned the youngest lad. And you don’t even like carrot cake. You only like the frosting. What’s up with that?

What’s going on, anyhow? You know what I’m talking about. Where’s that go-getter who wouldn’t let the world stop her? The lady, who taught, counseled, advocated, and even woke up early to meditate? Where is she?

Somehow, when I wasn’t looking, you’ve latched on to this Aspergers gig like there’s no tomorrow.  By the way, I read your post from a few days ago, and I don’t talk that much during most movies, just the boring romantic comedies with no plot worth following.

Come on Girl, I’m dying in here watching you beat yourself all up. And who cares about the professor not recognizing your writing ability and knocking you down points, because you didn’t follow her rules to the exact. That’s life.

You can’t always earn full points in life. Isn’t that what you always tell Joe—to not let what others’ think bother him. But here you are worrying all the time that you’re not enough. Get with it, already. You are already enough, and so much more.

Pull out the prayers and poetry you use for inspiration. Reread some of the plethora of spiritual and religious books you’ve collected. Stop focusing on only one genre: That of poor little old Sam and Aspergers. You’re creating more clutter in that brain of yours than you need.

Yes, you can write a post like this. Who fricken cares? If this is the only post they read, and they think your nuts, so be it. I might wear those tight sweaters with the LV monogram, but I’ve got enough of Brain for the both of us. So let me take the lead awhile, would you?

Stop trying to control life and just ease up and relax. Just because you don’t think you can, doesn’t mean you can’t. You aren’t even trying. You’ve got all you need around you, and more, but still you wallow in self-pity. This isn’t thirty years ago. You don’t need to be sad anymore. This is life—right now, this day, this moment, seize it.

Get that pedicure! See that movie. Have that tea with a friend. Stop hiding in your house. Blast the music. Open the windows. Let the fresh air in. Bang pots and pans. Light incense. Scream. Shout. Cheer. Do whatever it takes to break out of this funk.

Yes, Scooby’s dead. Yes, you have to retrieve his ashes. Yes, sometimes college totally sucks, and your fixations seemingly suck you dry. But you know what, you are the one who has a choice. You always have the glorious choice. Continue to sit on your rump and feel sorry for yourself, or get up and get moving. I don’t care how far or where. Just take a step in any direction.

I know this is harsh, but harsh is what you need right now. I know what’s best, and I see what you’ve been doing. Enough already. Get back to where you were. Nothing has changed that drastically. If you must, keep mourning the loss of Scoob. But please stop mourning the loss of you! You’re still here. You’re still you. Even when others don’t see, you’ll always be you.

Here’s a poem to keep handy. Now get of your butt and start skating! The world’s waiting.

Your Friend for Life,

LV (the Little Voice inside my head)

Life is Like a Roller Rink      (February 2012)

Life is like a roller rink.

We each groove and glide to our own beat.

We slow down, speed up, and then slow down again, taking the turns as they come.

Though others may knock us down, run us over, or push us out-of-the-way, we get back up eventually, and keep moving.

We glide forward and sideways, and every once in a while find ourselves going backwards.

After twirling too fast for too long, we laugh; we cry.

We hold hands to keep our balance.

In moments of bravery, we speed out to the inner circle, keeping our pace in the fast lane.

In moments of caution, we remain on the outer circle, gripping the wall for dear life.

Sometimes another gently pulls us off the wall.

We get blisters and bruises.

We ram into others, stop and apologize, and then lend a hand.

We tangle up our feet and fall on our butts.  Some of us have more grace, some of us more padding.

If we aren’t careful, when we try to pull others up, we fall down right with them.

From the sideline, we observe those gliding by, wondering how they do the things they do, or questioning if we might, someday, do the same thing.

We sweat.  We stink.

Sometimes we trade in the skates that served us well, in hopes of discovering a better fit or style.

There are speeders who don’t pay attention to anyone else, until they collide into someone, or collapse from exhaustion.

Racing ahead, we partake in games, in hopes of a prize.

Some are left behind.

While many never seem to catch up.

We feel the wind in our faces and the rush of adrenaline.

We are surrounded by lights that illuminate our way.

Some spin and do tricks, in hopes of gaining attention.

Somewhere, up high in a box is a person in charge.  We may make a request or keep moving without second thought.

We don’t take much notice that we are going round and round, only to end up right back where we started.

When we rest, regroup, and nurse our injuries, there is nothing that can stop us from getting back on our feet, and starting the circular journey, all over again.

And in the end, when the music inevitably stops, we all must leave.

By Everyday Asperger’s Blog author, Samantha Craft

Day Twenty-Three: A Sliver of My Sacred Hours

| Aspergers Girls

Everyday that I sit to write, usually between the Pacific Coast hours of 9:00 and 11:00 a.m., is a sacred journey for me. Whether I am coming off a black tea caffeine-high, and spicing my ramblings with humorous prose, or sharing a profound recollection or excerpt from past journals, I honor this time as a part of my spiritual passage. And for being here, and sharing in this journey, I thank you. My hope is that you leave with something of value, though I understand your experience is your experience, and out of my control. Still, my intention is to connect and share, to never preach or persuade. I hope you can sense my intention.

I feel guided by a higher spirit during my revered two hours. I try not to plan what I am going to write, because when I do plan, the words never match my idea of what I’d thought to type. Usually, the prose is at a dynamic polar opposite of my original preset plan.

I believe in a higher power but choose not to let my belief system affect my open heart and mind—I wish to remain available to life and avoid rigidness and dogmatic viewpoints. Obviously, in someway, my belief system will always define, minimally at a subconscious level, how I perceive life.

In analyzing my spiritual reckonings, I say today, at this very moment of writing, I haven’t had a choice but to believe in some higher being, collective energy, or presence. A source that remains beyond myself and my limited understanding.  As odd as that may sound—the statment of having had no other option but to believe in a higher source—this remains a fact in my life. I accept this is my current truism, and recollect, that like the flowers through the seasons, I will inevitably transition, possibly into a new state of comprehension. As I explained in my fist post, I conjecture our perception of life is based on multiple factors:

“Our understanding of this life experience is primarily based on our individual genetic makeup, societal influences, family environment and dynamics, adopted belief systems, and the limitation of the five senses. Some would go further and postulate that our experience of this life is based on a collective spiritual, and perhaps even ancestral, journey, and/or that we are living a journey already preordained and set out in an exact blueprint. There is the concept of emptiness. There is the idea of heaven. The thought of the collective unconscious. The faith of a higher power. Some even hold true to the fact that we are living in multiple dimensions, creating infinite destinies with each and every decision, each and every breath. Others believe this life is finite–that the real reward rests beyond.

Each of us holds something to be true about our experience of the world: even if that truth is simply believing no truth exists.”

 I understand this is only my idea of my universe. I choose to not place my view onto others, as I recognize my individual limitations to see the whole of what is before me; if in fact, anything exists before me at all. Within the vastness of my mind, I postulate that my higher source is an energetic love, and whether he or she, or even it, bares the face of a recognized deity, God, spiritual being, or other established truth, serves no baring in my determination of what is momentarily true for me.

Whether or not my higher source is the commonly accepted name of any given society—past, present, remote, distant, or near—is no matter to me. Having clung to and/or embraced multiple belief systems and faiths, I have determined, for myself, and me alone, that whatever the masses proclaim to be the form or name of a higher power, does not substantiate or decrease my belief.

I believe the power behind words, particularly the names of gods or deities, comes from the intention of the people proclaiming said names. When a word is spoken by the masses to represent truth and love, then the word reflects truth and love. And I conjecture the opposite to be true.

Like others before me, I believe words and symbols vibrate with collective energy, and that the level of vibration is determined directly by the belief system applied by the individual writing or speaking the word. Each of us experiences a word’s vibration based on the collected whole’s interpretation and in combination with our own life experience and understanding of the word. Words are simply, or not so simply, symbols transformed into pictures, images created in our minds. What I visualize in my mind is ultimately different from what another pictures in his or her mind. The variance of experience is inevitable, but the power behind a given word remains universal.

In current times, the line between science and religion, and other belief systems, regarding human’s state of existence, is becoming narrower and narrower; the line often appearing to vanish, as one sect’s of accepted truth overlaps with another sect’s of truth. I believe any man (woman) who holds onto his or her truth as the exact and only truth to be an innocent one. Inside the elements of my truth, all of us are innocent: for even when one accepts the limitations of the mind, he or she is still grasping at his or her individualized way of interpreting the world. This is not to say that I do not envision my higher power as a particular embodiment, only to say I understand my mind’s limitations.

In actuality, there is current evidence for an ever-changing world and belief system based on individual perception. The science community continues to postulate, from collected data, that an electron’s movement is directly related to the observer. And man has recorded photographs of water crystals forming exact shapes and form based on the vibration of the written words and/or the intention of one’s thoughts. Reality is being captured by man as a state of perpetual transition based on the observer.

I share this with you as a form of preparation. Not for you so much, but for me. As this aspect of myself is a vital piece of who I am, and how I currently present myself through words. In my walking world, where my physical form is present, I often shy away from topics encompassing my reality of life, but here, where I am shedding light on my experience, I find a necessity, at least for today, to be as real and authentic as possible.

Ironically, I aspire to paint with words a picture of my individual reality, while I know this world is not mine to own or create alone.

I’ve included a substantially complex prose entitled Universal Measurement below, which delves deeper into one’s  perception. In no way do I claim this as anyone’s truth. I’m not even certain the writing is what I know to be true. The words are only words, miraculous letters combined to convey a sliver of a glimpse of what I perceived. I still embrace many aspects of the religion I was raised to know; the main difference now is that I acknowledge my own being’s limitations to ever know the exact truth. In peace and love ~ Sam

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