Month: November 2012

Day 253: The Sam Machine: Processing

| Aspergers Girls

Processing

Lately, I’ve been processing a lot. The act of processing generally feels like an involuntary action, seemingly out of my control. The emotions are tangled and bundled, and hard to decipher. When I am processing, I do not feel comfortable in any part of my body or mind. It’s all I can do to function and do daily tasks. I might be in bed for the full of the day or might continually write in an attempt to pour some of the discomfort out. Distractions do not work; neither does the company of another, movies, books, or any type of action that might typically pull someone out of their thoughts. I can be having an entire conversation with someone or writing an article about a random topic, and the thoughts involved in processing are still rattling in my brain.

When I visualize processing, I see a lump of muck. This lump is a representation of what I have seen, heard, or read: something, usually a statement or words, or parts of a conversation that are heavy and stuck in the mud in front of me. The feeling of discomfort and confusion comes after I have been altered emotionally by news or information of some sort. It could be one word a friend spoke. Whatever emotive response was triggered inside of me, the response stirs and stirs my mind. All I can do is sit back and become audience to my brain as it sifts, filters, dissects, chops, and dismembers this body of information. Then the body becomes whole again and the process is repeated. The process is very complex and uncomfortable.

Most forms of processing happen so quickly that I don’t recognize what is taking place. Other forms of processing takes a few minutes or part of the hour. Some processing can take a day. An extreme processing can take the better part of a week.

In example, when my son’s teacher called to tell me he was having behavioral issues, after we hung up, I processed the conversation. I reheard the conversation in my mind several times. That was enough. I didn’t feel like I needed to stay in that space and repeat the conversation in my thoughts over and over.

Sometimes I need to press repeat in my mind, and cannot help but, rewind and review, and rewind and review information repeatedly. If a conversation is written in print or on the computer screen, I will go back and reread the sentences in detail, a half-dozen times or more. I will analyze certain words and theorize what was said, the plausible intention, what could have been implied, and what might have been said differently. I do this for both myself and the speaker/writer. I will feel the energy behind the words.

If the words are not written, I will replay the conversation in a similar format, visualizing the words. If the conversation is in person, I will recreate the scene in my mind, and relive the experience over and over. If I am alone and perhaps on the computer when I have communicated, then I will revisit where I was sitting, what I was doing, and visualize the room and everything about the environment at the time. It feels as if I am there again.

This takes place over and over and over, like I am stuck in a rerun of a moment. Processing that takes less of my time happens so fast that the steps and moments breeze by without notice. In the scenerio I mentioned about the teacher phoning to give me information about my son, I would likely repeat the facts in my head, visualize where I was when the person called, logically talk to myself about why I am upset, talk myself down from being upset, try to center myself, and then repeat the process. I would hear an entire verbal conversation in my mind with myself. We would talk each other down. Self and I. Then I would likely write it out or verbally process by calling or writing a friend.

Sometimes the only way to relieve the angst, even if minor, is to phone someone I know immediately and talk. A type of panic sets in, as if I cannot breathe until the thoughts are shared with someone else. This happens in all cases of emotional distress. My thoughts speed up and I feel under attack in all areas of my body and mind. This can also happen when I am excited about good news.

Life doesn’t feel real until I have expressed the interior of my mind with someone else. Or perhaps, I don’t feel real until I get out of my head.

I get trapped  sometimes in my reruns of thoughts and reliving a scene, and the key seems to be making a connection with someone else. This connection may involve repeated actions on my part. The same question over and over: Do you love me? The same worry over and over: Do you think I am a good mother? Or it may simply be me recreating the scenario and explaining to someone aloud or in writing to release what is inside. If there are written words involved, I might share what happened by showing a person the text. All these actions of connecting are an attempt to take out the clutter and pain that is occurring nonstop inside my head.

Another way to visualize my processing is like a huge lit up grid, and I am a small person standing in the middle. I guess this could be visualized like the way synapses fire and travel or like a large blue print used in quantum physics. There are millions of avenues and routes set before me on this grid and my thoughts travel different paths, reverse, recreate and travel new paths again. My thoughts go back and forth, inside out, up and down, and all about. Like a hokey pokey dance of the mind—only it’s not my right foot doing the dance, it’s the whole of me.

I cannot concentrate on anything else at depth until the processing is done. I will have a far away look, and appear depressed, withdrawn and deeply preoccupied to the extent where an observer will ask: What’s wrong?

What’s wrong is something has been said, seen or heard that has triggered an array of uncontrollable thoughts and emotions, and that discomfort will remain until I let the whole of me go through the process of analyzing, dissecting, and piecing back together what has happened. This usually means I get less sleep, and wake up with an urgency to repair or fix the unsettled feelings. This usually means researching of some type, whether through conversations with others about the experience, reviewing my own prior writings, looking up facts and statistics online, or rereading and rereading the conversation that triggered the “episode.” OCD behaviors often set in, such as continually checking the comment section of my blog.

I cannot say it is an easy process. But at the same time it is highly remarkable to be part of the experience; especially when the process is over and the relief comes. Sometimes there is no answer to be found, and I grow exhausted of the thinking and rethinking, and let it go. Sometimes, oftentimes, I find solutions and new ways of viewing the situation or learn valuable information. Sometimes I am able to help other with similar problems as I’ve lived my own problems so acutely.

All in all it is an experience that still baffles and entirely exhausts me, as it runs away with my time, energy, and thoughts. Yet in the end I feel filtered through in all areas: my mind, heart, and spirit. It  is as if I was part of an elaborate, soul-level filter system that located the muck and junk, scooped it out, and left me cleansed and purified. It hurts like the worst kind of hurt. But it’s part of who I am and how I function in this complex world.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On a side note, my father called me earlier today. We hadn’t spoken since July. He had not seen the letter or my blog it was just random coincidence, some might say. Others would say differently. I was crying still, when he called. This was the first time in my life I cried over my father, and he happened to call. I am ever so thankful. It hurt something terrible, but I spoke my piece and was heard. I’ve done all I can do, and can release now. Thank you and bless you so very much. ~ Sam

Post 252: Dear Father

| Aspergers Girls

I am processing so much, so fast; it is quite overwhelming. Please understand this post is healing for me. I am not reaching out for support or love. In writing this and sharing this truth, I am healing my own self. Your presence and eyes are enough. I do not need or expect words of comfort. I do not need anyone to tell me that I am enough. Innately, I know I am enough, that I am beauty, that I am good. But this little girl needed to be heard, so I could heal further. I am okay. I am better than okay. I am facing my demons head on and surviving. Not only surviving, but smiling through tears. So please know I am okay. I am okay in me and with me. I like me. I love me enough to be who God intended me to be. And I love you enough to trust in your love. ~ Sam

 

Dear Father,

You don’t love me, and you never have. If you do, it’s limiting and conditional. I am made into a person who is judged and evaluated, or worse not seen or spoken to. You have been my everything since I was born. My superman. My rescuer. My hope. The man created to love and hold me, to cherish and lift. And yet you have done none of this.

I am left hollowed from the inside out, a forgotten child, who has had to find her own way, whilst left alone without you. You came out of obligation, if you ever came at all, out of guilt or need. Never out of connection or thought for my betterment. Life has been about you from the start, and continues to be about you: your hobbies, your interests, your wives.

You have said to me once I am beautiful. Only once. On my wedding day, and I hold on to that word as if it were the last sound of my life. How I have longed to be held and told I am lovely and worthy; how I have missed the embrace of a father, and thusly sought out the embrace wherever I could.

Through torment I wept for you. Through miserable relationships and false dreams. I created fantasies and idols with men, in hopes of finding you again.

Yet, still I weep and walk alone. No one is you. No one is my father. Not even you.

You live but you are dead; in the sense of being and not existing. You choose each day to reject or worse forget. Your silence and aloofness my hellfire.

Some child in me still believes I can find you in someone else, find the love and approval. I imagine them as you. I place your face on them. I replay the words over and over, with your voice and your heart. But, still I know this is not you.

I hunt down people in hopes of them being you. Have from the start—a small child searching for her father in playmates and strangers. I have exposed myself to countless hurts, hoping to appease and please a someone who was not you, but that I believed to be you. Every time I am rejected, again by you.

Why? Why can you not see my beauty and love? Why is your view of me not what the world sees? Why do many love me, when the one I need the most to love me, does not? What have I done wrong? What is innately wrong with me that you would refuse the gift I am? Why am I left unopened, still on this shelf of pain waiting to be taken? To be taken and held. To feel a father’s arms around me. A hug. An embrace. To see your eyes. To look in your eyes and see adoration. What is that like? What does it feel like to be held by a father? To be loved by a father? What does it feel like! I need to know. I need to know. Just once, before I die, I need you to hold me.

I have wept for you since my hands were tiny and fragile. I have wept for you endlessly. I walk in silence but the tears cut through my soul. They eat at me and destroy my truth. They huddle me into a corner and persecute me. I cannot be in this world when I know my own creator detests his creation. My own God I set into your mold. And I am left shattered, broken, while still untouched and waiting.

Please love me, so I can stop my search. I am so tired. So weary. So alone without you.

Please see me. Please see my beauty. Please release me from my torment.

I beg for your love. I cry out for your love. Across the universe I reach for you. This child I am.

Post 251: Holy Water

| Aspergers Girls

This story is dedicated to a dear blogging friend Kindred Spirit, who made me giggle at mention of my experiences being ordinary. Here’s one for you Bro!

Holy Water  

by Samantha Craft (based on real life events; some events altered.)

My dog Justice curled up beneath our coffee table gurgling and gnawing at his backside.  I sat cracking open smiling pistachios.  A few paces away, Mother faced our antique German cabinet, her look overcome with concern.  “You know what?” Mother asked.

My eyes sought out the angles of her body, falling on her slight hips and then her tense shoulders.  I responded softly while setting a pistachio between my teeth, “What, Mom?”  Mother turned.  I met her eyes with a curious stare, recognizing at once the nervous thickness in her thoughts, and then swept a cluster of pistachio shells across the table into a small concise circle. I waited.

Mother faced me with the full of her body, the ends of her tangled hair resting against her bulging collarbone.  “I think there is something wrong with the cabinet.”

From the corner of our living room the massive mahogany cabinet stood stoically surrounded by a hodgepodge of second-hand furniture, appearing like a polished soldier amongst a gathering of dusty-faced peasants.  The cabinet’s aged glass reflected an opaque wave of Mother, as she made her way to the couch near Justice and me.  “There’s something not right about it; that’s all,” she said.

I stretched my legs beneath the coffee table and rubbed my toes through the fibers of the carpet, trying to brush the topic away.  Nearby Mother tapped her newly-polished fingernails on the dusty coffee table. Looking down at Justice chewing away at his backside, I remembered the story of how Mother had crashed through the ancient glass front of the cabinet when she was a teenager, after tilting her dining room chair back too far.  I preoccupied myself by calculating the age of the present day pane of glass, and then thought about my mother’s father, denture-wearing, fiddle playing Grandpa Willy, wondering what he looked like now, figuring how many hours it would take to drive for a visit.

Lighting up a cigarette, Mother inhaled deeply, and then blew out.  “I think the cabinet is possessed,” she offered casually.

I bit down hard on pistachio shell and gave out a nervous little laugh.

Mother grinned.  Two fingers embraced her cigarette and pressed against her lips.  I thought about Buddy One, my imaginary ghost friend; he hadn’t moved downstairs with us to the bottom duplex.  Mother picked up a stack of green-backed tarot cards and set them on a table to her side.  “With all your dreams that come true and the noises and voices you hear, even that ghost friend of yours, I can’t help but think something is causing all of this.  And when you think about it, that cabinet has faced your bedroom in the last four places we’ve lived.”

I took in a deep breath, grabbed a day old glass of lemonade and drank, taking the bitter with the sweet, not knowing if I should laugh or cry.  Scenes from Casper the Friendly Ghost and The Exorcist flashed before me.  How I longed for a brother or sister to elbow me in the side and say, “Don’t worry.  It’s all pretend.”

Before supper, Mother appeared at my side with her orange-flowered overnight bag and tossed a grocery sack my direction.  I peeked inside the bag to find a yellow onion skin stuck to the bottom.  “Fill this up,” Mother said. “We’re going.”

The sun was low on the horizon when a woman with wispy-white hair and a whimsical Muumuu opened her front door.  Justice lapped at my tennis shoes and cowered behind my knees, while I tugged on his leash, trying to steady his body.

Minutes later Justice and I followed Mother, as she huffed back to the car with sober steps. I knew beyond a doubt that the combination of Mother’s somber face and conspiratorial tone, blended in with the tale of the spirit in the cabinet, had led to our early departure.  Her actions were indeed strange, but not without merit.  I myself had experienced the dreams which came true; Mother’s theory was as good as the next.  Reflecting on my dead bird and hustling down the dirt walkway with Justice, I counted myself lucky to have a parent that cared.

The next path Mother led me up was a granite-crushed walkway.  This time Justice remained in the car.  After we reached the front door of an expansive ranch-style home and Mother rapped a brass knocker, the door opened to a delicate aroma of roses and a middle-aged man in a paisley tie. The man wiped his hands on the pockets of his denim apron.  “How can I help you?” he asked, his dark blue eyes sweeping the neckline of Mother’s low-cut shirt.

Mother straightened her posture and pushed me forward. I flashed a broken-tooth grin, focused downward on my lavender-starred shoelaces and began counting the stars.

“Is Barbara home?”  Mother asked.

“Sure, just a sec…. I’ll run and get her for you.”

Mother’s knuckles were whitening as she gripped my hand.

Barbara appeared wearing a dramatic aquamarine scarf and holding a wooden spoon.  She looked surprised to see us.  “Is everything all right?  Did something happen at the office?”

“Oh no, that’s all fine.”  Mother paused and gave me the evil-eye. “Keep still.”     Shrinking from Mother’s words, I stopped shuffling my feet on the woven doormat, cast my eyes sideways, and clenched my fists.

“Actually, you see, we need a favor.  We can’t stay at our house tonight,” Mother said.

“Oh?”

“We need a place to stay.”

A frown creased Barbara’s brow.  “I don’t understand. Is everything all right?  Is there something wrong?”

Mother leaned towards Barbara. “Well, you see.  I know this sounds extreme, but I have some evidence that…” Mother stopped to clear her throat.  “Actually, you see there is something in our cabinet.”

Barbara stepped onto the porch.  “What are you talking about?”

I stepped backwards and hid behind my mother’s back.

Mother put her hands on her hips.  “What I’ve been trying to tell you, is there is a spirit in our cabinet.  And you see we need a place to stay; but only for tonight, that is—just until the exorcism.”  Mother looked down as if she were embarrassed by her own words.

Giving an odd glance and shifting back, Barbara moved through the entryway into her house.  She closed the door until only her face showed.  “This isn’t a good time.  I’ve got dinner on the stove and we’re expecting company.  I’m sorry.”  With that the door shut completely and a cool wind swept across the porch.

Sometime after sunset, sitting in the backseat of the car, listening to the song Don’t Cry Out Loud, I stroked Justice’s hairy chin and thought by all fairytale accounts Mother should have already made some headway—made a step past someone’s threshold.  After all even the Big Bad Wolf blows down two houses before failing and two of the three Billy Goats pass over the bridge without consequence.

After a quick stop at a gas station for cigarettes and nine dimes into the pay telephone later, Mother eyed the rearview mirror as if some entity might be on our tail and weaved ahead through the darkening night at a frightful speed.  The car jolted and bounced, climbing over a scattering of rocks, until we landed on a wide gulf where a blur of an ash-colored tomcat disappeared behind the porch swing.

Inside the house, Mother sucked an extended puff from a cigarette. “Every time I try to get my life in order something happens.”  Her lower lip jutted upwards and she let out an exaggerated exhale.  The smoke reached my eyes, my nostrils, my lungs, and I let out a sequence of coughs.  I sneezed into my hands.  Justice’s ears perked up from under the coffee table.  Mother’s dark-haired friend nodded and the conversation continued, meandering from relationships to work, and back again to the haunted cabinet.  I curled on top of a lumpy couch and closed my eyes.

In the late morning mother and I arrived at our duplex and sat on the small patio near the front entry. A priest, donned in a traditional high-white collar and long black robe, emerged from around the corner carrying a weathered briefcase across our dew-wet grass. Looking like she hadn’t slept in days, Mother rose from our front porch and extended her hand.  After a few pleasantries, Mother unlocked the front door and led the priest inside our dark living room.  After following them inside, I sat in the far corner watching them both: my gaunt mother and the stately-looking priest, with Justice’s breath hot on my face.

The priest, wasting no time, took out a miniature glass bottle from his leather case. He unscrewed the bottle, recited a few biblical verses and sprinkled water on and around the base of the cabinet.  After reciting a prayer, he twisted the lid back on, opened his case, placed the bottle inside, snapped the case closed, and looked at the two of us.  “I hope that helps,” he said.

Mother reached into her jean pocket, pulled out a folded bill, and handed it to the priest. “Thank you so much, Father. You’ve really helped us. I don’t know what we would have done without you.”

The priest nodded his head and tucked his briefcase under his arm. “You and your daughter are welcome to our church anytime.  We are just around the corner.”

I rose up off of the carpet and calmed Justice with a brush to his head, nodding politely at the priest.  The priest smiled, waved, and rang out a pleasing God Bless You and then showed himself out the door.

With the priest gone and the evil spirit banished, Mother disappeared into her bedroom, while I remained in the dark staring out at the cabinet.

The story had not ended like I’d expected.  No green-faced monster had popped his ferocious spinning head out from the depths of the cabinet.  No lightening bolts had appeared.  In fact, there wasn’t any evidence of anything out of the ordinary at all.  There were no answers or explanations.  It was as if I was stuck in the middle of some long storybook, unable to flip back to the beginning and start over and equally incapable of proceeding forward to the end. After all the running away and hype, all the embarrassment and fear, there was nothing to show in the end.  Only Mother’s deep snores trumpeting from the backroom and Justice licking up the trickling drops of holy water.

Post 250: It’s Raining Men

| Aspergers Girls

Anyone else roller skate to this music?

Lately, I’ve been admitting love.

I post love on my blog, on my social network page, and admit love to my friends.

It’s been very freeing and healing.

I’ve also been processing through past relationships with men.

Until last week, I saw myself as a real victim in love relationships.

In the beginning of my “dating” years, which actually started at age five, (No kidding; I always loved boys. My first “date” was at Keith’s house, where he introduced me to his favorite delicacy, peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches. I politely gagged.)….

In the beginning of my boyfriend-girlfriend years, I attracted very safe males: sweet, kind, friendly, and truthful. I was fortunate to have two boyfriends in high school (at separate times), after I moved back to California, that treated me with the up most respect and love. But something shifted at about the age of twenty. Perhaps it was being away from my extended family and not having a father that adored me. Or perhaps the shift was brought on by insecurities surrounding college or finally “growing up.” Regardless, at the age of twenty I began falling for whomever paid attention to me. For seven years my relations with men were bleak and tumultuous.

So often, in my twenties, the man I “chose” was addicted or abusive or both. I felt used physically, and was often dumped out like last week’s beer bottles—left clanging and spinning down a steep hill of depression. For years and years I blamed these men for their character and callousness. I cringed at the thought of these people not loving ME! How could they not? What was wrong with me?

A few days ago, I suddenly had a knowing. I suddenly saw in full picture, a truth. I wasn’t a victim. I wasn’t used and tossed out. There wasn’t a right person or wrong person in my sexual drama. I attracted men at the same level I was at spiritually and emotionally. (I had to leave out mentally, and just giggle. I was always smarter! Lol.)

But most telling, I realized at the center core of me the profound truth: that in fact I USED THEM.

In my mind I had thought that their “crime” was using me physically; and how could any crime be worse than that type of invasion? However, my crime was equal. I was a “villain” too. I used them. I chose to be with a man I didn’t like and didn’t respect, in order to not be alone. I used men!

Suddenly this ah-ha moment swept me away, and time stopped. I traveled back to a dozen relationships, and revisited and swept clean the energy attachment. Within seconds, I’d forgiven the men and myself. The labels were released. The words of scumbag, loser, liar, addict, etc. that I applied to the men, vanished. And then, presto, the labels slut, stupid, blinded, desperate that I’d branded to my energy field disappeared too! I began to see the men as other spirits on their journey. I began to see I was never victimized. I understood that using is using, whether it be of flesh or emotion. And then I released the using label, too. We weren’t using. We just were. We were existing, surviving, journeying. We just were. And so it goes.

Here is a prior entry about my experience with men

(reposted from past entry)

The Dance with Don

(notice the tone of this…written before my ah-ha moment.)

The highlight of my dating career had to be the season I spent with the habitual lying, sexually addicted Don—a spineless man five years my senior who behaved ten years my junior.  At first glance I’d fallen head-over-sandals in love with Don.  The summer day he confidently strode through the Catholic daycare where I worked, I’d tucked myself halfway behind a shelf of books and drooled over his perpetually sun-kissed skin.  He was everything I’d wanted, dark and handsome, and tall enough to look down at me with his bedroom eyes.

The times Don and I were together weaved in and out sporadically through a span of half a decade.  When I first met Don he was separated from wife number one; when I last reunited with Don, he was struggling to patch it up with wife number two.  I was the in-between, but one Don swore up and down he intended to marry.

The majority of our relationship played out like an ill-plotted soap opera, with me as the dimwitted, star-struck mistress and Don as the notorious villain.

There were definite reasons I stuck around. With Don came a familiarity of unpredictability.  He was my locomotive, the one I could catch a ride on and speed through the world with a view I remembered—one of constant change and chaos.

For a long while, I’d do anything I could to win Don over. I’d forgive his shortcomings and mysterious disappearing acts, and demean myself in different ways.

In our first months together, when I was still hopeful, there’d been major red flags.  Don had no home phone number or address.  His scorned, soon to be ex-wife, had warned me to have nothing to do with Don.  And Don’s truck was mysteriously breaking down, in an accident, short on gas, or had a flat tire, many of the nights he was supposed to be with me.

I was good at rationalizing his actions and taking his lies as truth.  I found reasons to stay, like the fact that Father liked Don and that Don eventually showed up.

I was twenty-years-old and newly accepted into the teaching credential program at the university the weekend I learned of Don’s other woman.  It was either the Saturday I’d scrubbed Don’s toilet, or the time I’d obsessively lined his kitchen shelves; no matter, it was the eventful afternoon I came face-to-face with a woman out for blood.

I’d been oblivious of course, hadn’t a clue Don had flirted with a seventeen year old outside of the construction site where he worked, slept with her, and possibly fathered her baby.

For some time there had been hints of another woman.  All along Don had pushed back our framed photos or even turned them face down, forgetting to place them back up in their right position when I arrived.  And I love you posters and cards I had made for Don had been rearranged on the wall or re-taped in another room of his cheap apartment.

The one of many climatic events of our relationship began with a loud knock at the door, an initially startling noise that momentarily displaced me, until I assumed Don missed another rent payment or lost another spousal support check.  By the second series of knocks, I’d headed toward the front door, and would have unlocked the knob, if Don had not, in one swift pull, yanked me backwards by the tail of my shirt and whispered, “Don’t.”

It was then I heard her voice for the first time, a high-pitched scream to the tune of:  “Open the damn door, Don.  I know you are in there.”

I wasn’t that far gone in my oblivion love state, not to recognize the voice of another woman.  With immediacy I scowled at Don like he’d taken my only prized possession, and pushed my palms into his chest, wanting to hurt him like he’d just pained me.

Don stepped back, taking my hands into his, and mouthing, “I’m sorry.  I love you.  I only love you.”  He then released my hands and tugged down nervously on his neon-green tank top. “I meant to tell you.  I swear,” he said, widening his dark eyes in remorse like I’d seen him do a dozen times before. “If I told you, if you found out, I was afraid you’d leave me.  And she was a horrible mistake.  I didn’t want her to be the reason we lost such a good thing.  I love you so much.  You know I do.  You have to trust me.”

Before I could make up my mind about what to do, there was one final series of knocks, and the voice came again, only louder and more determined: “If you don’t open this damn door, I’m going to kick it down!”

What happened next still amazes me, and proves once again the strength that can be found in pure rage.  Within a few seconds of her last knock, there was one heavy kick of her foot, followed by several more, and then, without warning the door broke off of its hinges, the side paneling splintering, and the whole of the door slammed down inside the apartment.

There, amongst the settling dust, in marched a skinny girl, no taller than five-feet, cradling a screaming newborn in her arms.  Boiling with revenge, she charged Don like some creature from a Japanese horror flick, with her arms outstretched growling for revenge.  On reaching Don, she punched him once in the chest and then shoved the baby at him.  “Take her!” she ordered, back stepping and turning her head with a whip of her dirty-blond hair.

From behind the couch, I tracked the baby’s wrinkled arms flailing, and then gasped as the girl moved towards me.  Her eyes were on fire as she shouted at full-throttle, “I’m going to kill you, Bitch!”

Without thought, I ducked around Don and attempted to make my way to the doorway.   Don didn’t waste anytime.  Before I had a chance to maneuver myself around the girl, Don had tossed the baby on the couch, grabbed his bike, carried it down the apartment stairs, and rode off.

For a few seconds both the girl and I stared out the doorway with disbelief, and then we stared down at the tiny infant crying on the couch, until the girl’s raging eyes met mine, and she roared, “You’re dead!”

From where she stood, prepared to launch, I could smell my scent on her, the expensive bottle of perfume I received from my father for my birthday, which had recently gone missing from my bathroom shelf.

As the girl stormed forward, I managed to swerve around her.  She lunged at me, barely swiping my shoulder.  I jumped over a small ottoman, snatched up my car keys and practically flew down a flight of concrete stairs.

In the narrow carport, I started my sedan and backed up.  Just as I was about to turn out of the apartment complex, the frenzied girl’s enormous boat-of-a-station wagon came charging forward and blocked my way out.

Seconds later, leaving the baby wailing on the front seat of the car, the girl marched across the parking lot to my car window and ordered, “Roll down your window!”

Caught between a place of disbelief and hysteria, I shook my head and whimpered, “I didn’t know.  I didn’t know.”

The girl’s face turned from one of frozen-ice to empathetic-disgust.  She tapped on the glass of the window a few times, and then rolled her eyes up letting out a long heavy sigh.  Finally, seemingly understanding my predicament, she waved me off with a shake of her hand, before stomping back to her car.

After she sped off, I remained in the parking lot, uncertain of what I’d gotten myself into, and more uncertain of how I would ever find my way out of my contorted labyrinth.

Post 248: Love

| Aspergers Girls

Love

He came at dawn’s break

With glowing light

My heart made soldier

To his delight

My fingers his minion

And beckoning call

My body his vessel

As tethered, I fall

Captured entirely

In untimely game

From the utterance only

Of one simple name

Love, how you choose

Like buttercup of land

And captain my freedom

In hourglass of sand

Unturned and still motion

Time plays without one

My world on a shelf

Until love is undone

~ Sam Craft, November 2012

Thoughts on Love

There is the love of mother to babe, sister to brother, neighbor to neighbor.

There is the love that reminds one of self, a reflection of beauty and recognition.

There is the love of accomplishing a sought after goal and reaching one’s highest potential, a satisfaction.

There is a love of enduring and suffering, and sticking things out.

There is a love of familiarity, having known each other to the point of predicting the next move, next statement, next thought.

There is a love of journeying together through trials and tribulations, and hopes and dreams, a love of endurance and strength.

There is a love of opportunity, of hope, of guessing, of wishing, a pulsating-driven love that makes one leap out of bed in hopeful expectation.

There is a love of infatuation, lust, and mingling, perhaps driven biologically or through soul, or a combination, but nonetheless hot and steamy and wanting.

There is a love unreturned that leaves one empty and doubtful.

There is love unrecognized, ungrown, unnourished, ungiven—the love of neglect and forgetfulness.

There is the love of ego-centered built only to uplift self, to praise one to feel good about another, the prospect of another’s potential temporarily filling the void of the emptied.

There is the love of uncertainty, resembling the love of obligation.

There is rule-bound love, created for conforming and people-pleasing, a mask placed on and off as needed.

There is the love of twins, separate but one, who move as mirrors as one another, and cannot help but love what is them.

There is the love born of hate, where battle was fought, enemy lost, and the tears wash out the anger to expose the commonalities of humanity.

There is a love of knowing, of caring, of wanting to fix and make better, to appease the need to reach out and help.

There is the love of smothering and clinging.

There is the love of using to gain, to hide, or move ahead.

There is the love of respect.

There is the love of awe.

There is the love of mystery, a captivating intrigue, without reason or explanation.

There is the love of company, companionship, the release of isolation.

There is love in the word alone, the vibration and energy produced in thought and sound.

There is love in the beauty of one or many, the beauty of nature, the beauty of art, creation.

There is love that is all-encompassing, beyond borders and definitions.

There is love that is far-reaching and healing.

There is love beyond measure, pure elation, recognition and union.

There is love lost.

There is love unopened.

There is love in silence and emptiness.

There is love in a touch, in a dream, in a memory.

There is love in illusion.

There is love.

I’ve been trying to understand what love means since last April. This has been a year of much transition and healing for me, and along with this healing has been the extreme necessity to understand love. This morning I awoke before dawn and was able to visualize a clear understanding of love as the word applies to my life.

I recognize now that I sense a soul print of each person when I first make contact, even if that contact is through words and not face-to-face.  This is not through any one sense, but from another sense I’ve yet to recognize or label. In some ways, the process of sensing a soul print seems to be a combination of all the senses with the addition of a knowing and feeling at a cellular, muscular, and both physical and non-physical level.

When I meet someone, the soul print is in the form of energy and makes pictures in my mind. I feel the person in different parts of my body; for example a tightening of the stomach or shoulders. With many people I feel uneasy both physically and emotionally, and I assume spirtually; with a select few I feel very safe.

For some reason, I can recognize peoples’ insecurities, fears, and misgivings readily, usually in general terms, and sometimes in specifics. I can easily sense states of unrest, panic, unease, addiction, deception, and interior motives. I can readily sense pure thought and unconditional adoration.

The person’s energy triggers memories in myself, and I can connect the energy to past experiences and past encounters.

I’ve felt these “feelings” since I can remember.

I feel energy with every word I write, think, or say. Likewise, I feel energy in other people’s words, whether it is the universal energy of the collective-thoughts of a word, or the intention behind a person’s word. Some words feel false, contrived, and unnecessary. Some words feel like trickery or falsehood. Other words feel free of clutter, clear, and pure.

I can feel a person through their words. I cannot explain it, but know it to be true.

When I worked as a spiritual counselor, I could sit with a person and tell them what I saw, how I perceived them to be energetically. I could see his or her trials and challenges, and also could see direct tools to assist in removing stagnant energy.

I don’t see things in levels, or heights, or degrees. All is equal. However, I see people stuck in a certain spot, often repeating the same patterns and lessons.

I can sense the energy of people trying to be strong and domineering, when they are actually wounded and lacking. I can sense anger and resentment, and these tend to be the most challenging senses I encounter.

How I feel upon meeting someone the first time, does not change. I know instantly if I can spend time around a person and be depleted or remained balanced. I know instantly how much I want to be with that person and if he or she is nurturing to my soul.

Why this information is important to me is because I realize now I equate love to the energy I feel from a person. I don’t feel love for a person. I feel a vibration and sense a soul print.

Where some people say love can grow with time, I do not understand this concept. I love from day one. If I feel nourished by someone’s energy, I feel an elation that would equate to falling in love.

I don’t love a select few. I love everyone. But I feel better around certain people more than others.  One could say I “love” a person based on the energetic vibration. Only vibration levels change. So that would be a false observation. I love a person’s soul print. It’s an underlying vibration that stays the same regardless of how that person feels at a given moment.

I understand now that I do not understand the mainstream’s idea of love.

Love doesn’t grow. I feel exactly the same way for a person the entire time. Their soul print doesn’t change.

At times when a person is happier or sadder, I feel these emotions, but his or her emotions do not affect how much I love or don’t love. Sometimes a person’s actions can have a rippling energy effect of joy or dread that reaches me, but the actions do not affect how much I love or don’t love. My love is not based on outside sources, something I can view externally, judge, discern, or categorize. If I love, I love.

I understand now why I can tell someone I love him or her after knowing them less than a day. And that as hard as I try to love someone more or less, I cannot.

I understand why I cannot get enough of someone whose energy is nurturing and giving and kind and centered. I see more and more how I am attracted to balanced and secure energy: people that love based on the unconditional energy-factors and not the limiting external factors.

When I love someone, I stop seeing the person in human form. Their face and body disappears. This is why it’s hard for me to remember faces, as I’m not focusing on the exterior; I am focused on the energy. When I love someone, I don’t care what they look like, how they age, or change, or are altered outside; there comes a time when I don’t see the outside at all. But there are elements of the physical I might recognize from dreams and distant memories. Something in the physical that draws me to them.

I’ve written this all out because of a driving need to understand love. But now I see the complexities are beyond my understanding entirely. So I will rest in the fact that the more I know myself, and the more I focus on being a beneficial light, absent of ill-will and judgment, that the more I will benefit love. And in this way I will grow; only to perish again with the seasons, and once again reseed, resurface, and stare in wonderment.