challenges

Day 216: Let the Grumpy Lady Pass

| Aspergers Girls

Let the Grumpy Lady Pass

“Guess what happens if you eat a raw snail? They have a parasite that goes into your brain and eats it. And our brain is not prepared for snail parasite. And you can’t defend it. It’s pretty much if you eat a raw snail, it’s all up to the snail if you live or die. If the snail has the parasite, you die!”

I am looking at snails with new eyes now, since my son’s enlightening comment on parasites. I have also reassured myself over and over that the chances are null that I will accidentally eat a raw snail and die from parasites eating my brain away.

Words are powerful, how they can alter the way you once viewed a person, place, or thing….even snails. Words can change the course of a life, too. Certainly happened for me. Just yesterday, in fact.

It was early afternoon, and I was strolling down the aisle in my favorite grocery store, when I spotted a blonde mother with five children. The oldest of her children, a young girl, was carrying her plump baby sister. The other three youngsters were little tots, all boys, ranging in height by a couple of inches from the next.

I stared, because that’s what I do when I’m processing. And about a dozen thoughts traveled through my mind all at once. I examined the mom’s facial expression, and instantly wondered if she was happy or frustrated with the shopping excursion. I noticed two of the boys had little shopping carts and that as a collective clan the family had barely gathered any groceries—just a couple bags of snack food. I evaluated and reevaluated, concluding that the mother enjoyed the attention of onlookers watching her shop with her little crew of miniature hers. In fact, I am quite certain she liked the attention. There were several of us shoppers trying to maneuver around the cute little ones, a line of about five or six of us squeezing our way down the aisle.

I was still watching and evaluating as I crept my cart forward. When I was near the mom, she eyed me closely. Then she turned to her troop and said, “Wait,” putting her arms back in stern gesture, “Let the grumpy lady pass.”

Immediately my right eyebrow shot up. Had she meant me? I was fairly certain she had. I rolled my eyes up and gave a quizzical expression, and then moved onward. A few steps ahead, I stopped to retrieve a can off the shelf. I noticed another lady standing close behind me. Feeling extremely self-conscious, and a bit flustered, I said, “Oh, I am sorry, if I am in your way.” She said, “No problem at all. But maybe you can help me find the artichokes.” I did. We scanned together, and I pointed them out with my over extended finger, while smiling big and glancing the direction of the meanie mom, as if to say, “See, how cheerfully helpful I am!”

Five aisles later, and I couldn’t get the meanie mom out of my mind. Was my expression seriously that sour? For a moment, I wished I was an always-smiling golden retriever.

By the time I reached the last aisle, my thoughts were still wrapped around the incident. By then, I had rationalized that the meanie mom wasn’t a very patient woman, and certainly wasn’t showing an effective example of behavior to her children. But I also reckoned she likely was juggling a full plate and was having a tough day. I also decided, with a mischievous little smile, that her husband, if she still had one, probably didn’t like her.

At the checkout area, I found the safest checker I could—a round-faced, middle-aged woman with a friendly natural grin. At the end of any shopping excursion I don’t look for the shortest checkout lines, I look for the least-threatening face. Typically, I chat it up with the grocery checkers as they are scanning my items. Conversation helps the time go faster, and alleviates some of my anxiety. Not much makes me more self-conscious than a line of strangers watching me; especially when they are waiting with those daunting expressions, seemingly cursing my high-piled grocery cart and wishing they’d chosen another route.

“I hope I don’t look grumpy,” I said, as I approached the checker and eyed the nametag Marge on a purple blouse. (Interesting conversation starter, don’t you think?)

I then explained, with rapid fire, what had happened on the aisle with the meanie mother. Marge smiled and responded kindly, and we bagged the groceries together. I told her about my Aspergers, and the man at the park who gave me his number as a result of my practice smiling, and she told me about her grown son with Aspergers. Turns out she homeschooled her son. He is now twenty and doing very well. We exchanged a lot of information and support in only a few minutes. I dodged the evil glares from the people in line. We were packing up the groceries rather slowly.

As Marge was bagging up the last of the food, she looked up at me, and said, “The main reason I homeschooled my son was because when he went to school he had to become someone else. He couldn’t go to school and be himself and still be accepted. He had to let go of who he was. God made my son in perfection. I wanted my son to be able to be who God intended.”

A bell went off in my head right then. My middle son was struggling in middle school even though  he was attending part-time. His anxiety was very high and depression was setting in.

I decided then and there to not send my son back to school and to instead homeschool him fulltime.

Later that day, as I calculated the probability of choosing the one checker out of a few dozen that so happened to have homeschooled a son with Aspergers, and as I processed that typically I would have not mentioned my Aspergers to a checker at a grocery store (had I not been upset), I smiled to myself about that mother and her five string of words that had changed the course of my life: Let the grumpy lady pass.

© Everyday Aspergers, 2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. https://aspergersgirls.wordpress.com

Day 213: Lost in my Mind

| Aspergers Girls

 

I have this person inside of me who is a judge, a stern judge, who questions and
reasons continually. He or she, or whatever it be, is relentless in their
search for truth, even when I plead that there is no truth. This entity
scrutinizes everything and everyone, even as I sit back from behind and shout
for him to stop. It as if he must dissect and find connections to
make sense of what he sees. As if my world is not enough and must be recreated
and categorized.

Nothing is easy for him. Nothing simple. Nothing plain. All is
complex. Even the eyes of a stranger are a deep hollow tunnel to dive into and
explore, to be lost from a near glance, and come out unquenched, only to dive
in again and again, to find nothing but the same. To feel depleted at every
turn because the answers don’t come readily, and when they do come they lead to
more questions.

It is an exhausting ride with no end. There is no coming up
without diving back down. There is no stopping. My mind is that rollercoaster
where the hands are up and you are screaming in glee, and then the turn comes
that makes you queasy, or the fear sets in, or the wheel make the sound that
pierces the ears, and you want to get off, you don’t want to ride again and again,
but you can’t get off, not because the belt is buckled, not because the wind is
fast and you face is slapping against it, only because you have forgotten you
are on the ride, and keep spinning round and upside down with no way to leave
what you don’t know you are on.

I can’t explain it. It is too complex and deep, and a mystery to me. I can see a forest, and getting lost in a forest, only to
awake and see that you are in a forest fast asleep dreaming of another forest,
but you are standing watching yourself sleep. It is a complexity so intense
that I am lost in my own world.

I don’t understand why others don’t see things
as I do, at least most others. How they can round a corner and think of nothing
but rounding a corner. How they can focus in a conversation and not feel and hear
and sense the thousand other things happening. What of the dust particles in
the air. The ticking clock. The grime on the couch. The fibers of the carpet
bent. The voice in the head rambling about woes. The tingling of skin. The
thoughts of the next word, and how the word carries a thousand different
meanings.

How can you talk to me and use these words when each word carries
this potential energy and meaning. Don’t you worry that I don’t understand you
exactly? Can’t you see we are not even communicating, really. That what you
sense and experience is not what you are conveying directly with words. That
what you are, whom you are is this huge collaboration of the way your body
moves, the way your eyes search, the sound of your voice, the pitch, the volume,
the breath, the sigh, the everything. How can I sit and be with you, when you
are communicating to me a fleet of ships in just one syllable, and all you
think I see is a row boat on the shore. No, you are a myriad of images.

I am a
vessel that collects, with every sound spoken and every thought unspoken, I
sense you with a sense I cannot pinpoint. I know you more than you think,
perhaps more than you know yourself. I can sense your sorrow, your insecurity,
your worry, your lies—the way you lie to yourself and corner yourself. I can
understand the depths of you while you remain on the outskirts in the shallow,
I swim in your deep.

And thusly, I do the same with me. I dance inside myself,
but not with joy, but in this tangled intertwined string, all twisted and
distorted, unable to tell one feeling from the other, because I am bombarded
all at once with experience upon experience.

To you a doorbell is a doorbell. A sound. An announcement. A door to be opened. To me a doorbell is a lion. A
ringing warning of what’s beyond, the thousand upon thousand possibilities of
one sound, one notion, one voice.

No, when you speak to me I do not hear your
words, I see your journey, I see your past, I feel your pain, I feel your joy. You come carrying the grand gift of you, wrapped and rewrapped, and hidden, and
haunted with ghosts, and you expect me to sit and take the crumb of you, the
one piece, when I see the monster lurching behind, the one that guards your
secrets. And he sees me. And he hungers after me, because he knows I can see
your treasures and truth. And out he comes to attack, to protect, to steal my
gifts. For he is fear’s gatekeeper, and I am fear’s mistress joy, and I wish
nothing but to help you see the beauty within.

I am stung by the wasps of you.
I am stung each time we talk, each time our eyes meet. For I can see you swarming
with truths you dare not whisper. I can see the bees behind you. Each carrying
a part of you, and yet you present yourself as single flower, and want me to
simply sniff and be gone.

How can I walk in this world when everywhere are
these bees, this noise, this stinging, whilst everyone pretends the flowers are
falling from the sky. How can I show you what I see when your eyes can only
reach to the horizon, and mine dig deep into the ocean sky, and swim beyond the
universe into you. I sense your depth. I sense your deep. I know you so well,
as reflection of me.

I know where demons hide and shadows and dark. I know
where light dances. I know the journey within the journey, but I am left to
smile shallow and speak a whisper. To bypass all the stories you carry and
wonder if by chance we shall meet again and you will let me swallow what is you,
so I may feed off of your loneliness and become one with myself.

Can you not see
we dance in isolation, this game of communication? Can you not see me standing
at the wall waiting for your hand? Can you not see we do not have this time,
this patience, this waiting. Now is now, and if you do not bleed for me, if you
do not purge yourself and throw up upon me, then I am left to drown in your
mire, fending for myself, while you walk blindly to your ways.

You bombard me
without knowing. You crush me. You crash upon me with your energy. You paint me
with your past, your future, your present, and your worries. You feed off of
me. You eat what you want and leave, all the while thinking you have merely
said Hello.

~ S. Craft, August 2012

Day 211: There Once Was a Little Girl Named Sam

| Aspergers Girls

There once was a little girl named Sam.

She spent her day in the wilderness amongst the walnut orchards and the towering oak trees, playing in the fields of tall grass. She was friends with all creatures grand and small. Every part of life was fascinating. Her own skin soft and delightful. The pink of her dog’s nose poking through where the black had worn away, a wet treat. The ants she watched with fascination. The wind she breathed in to catch. And the sky was her endless dream.

Nothing was missing or out of place. Everything moved as ordained in a perfect circle of give and take. Every part fit into place to make a glorious time, much as the intricate makings of a clock. All moved to produce one. All moved continually, and changed, and came back again. Returning to the eyes of the beholder what always was.

This little girl, she loved to dance and be. She could sit for hours and play inside her imagination whilst amongst nature’s gifts. Her bounty was the fallen twigs beneath her feet, the pebbles in her pockets and the taste of nectar on her tongue. Love was all about her, especially in the song of birds and the dipping of dragonflies as they danced reflecting the light with their transparent wings.

If colors were her world then the spectrum was grand—a thousand rainbows intertwined to form hues uncommon to the adult eye; colors that danced their own symphony producing brilliant songs from voices of angelic creatures.

There wasn’t a want or need. Just the simplicity of moving as one with the rest that danced. She was as a caterpillar set free upon endless green, nibbling at the gifts before her.

Until the rain came.

With the rain caterpillar ceased and butterfly was born. Butterfly was lovely, detailed and sketched in nature’s beauty, and able to fly and reach heights previously unimaginable. However, now she could dance outside her realm, her place, escape what she once knew as the only existence.

From up above, her angle changed. Her world became smaller and larger, all at once. Things she knew not of before appeared, and visions, she once believed in, vanished all together. As she watched and flew higher, she began to see where she’d been was nothing but a patch, a broken shattered fragment that with enough distance simply disappeared from sight.

When she returned and touched down, everything was altered, as her new eyes could not, as hard as she tried, see the terrain the same. All was different. All tainted with logic and reason and this undaunted inquiry.

That which was once simply existence, now was struggle. That which was once simply peace, turned to question after question. Her own beauty, that she had never doubted before, or even considered, now faded with her thoughts. And how those thoughts twisted within the others, creating a band so thick the toughest warrior could not break.

And now there were warriors. There were enemies and fighters. There were people who spoke untruths and hurt. There were diamonds that were stolen, treasures destroyed, and secrets kept. She knew then that the butterfly world was not where she belonged. Though she was butterfly.

She longed to return to the land of caterpillar. She longed for her old eyes, her old ways, her happiness.

She spent her days searching for kindness, for the place that once existed inside of her that was pure and innocent, the emerald of hope and faith that others now seemed to pierce and stab so often that she’d had to hide this essence out of fear of destruction.

And so she hid, inside herself, in this place.

When she was teased and admonished, she hid.

When she was tortured with looks and words, she hid.

When she tried to be as others wanted and she still was not enough, she hid.

And all the time she hid, she cried and wept for this land she knew before, where the birds sang and she only heard their music, where the wind blew and she only felt the air.

Now, with everything came explanation and reason. Now, with everything came doubt. And here, in this land of butterflies, she wished nothing but to pluck off her own wings and wither, if only to return to a part of her own self that could not fly above and see.

She’d wished for death, like so many misplaced butterflies do. Not death from her own being, but death from the world about her. To black out her surroundings and apply a fresh coat of white and paint again, a new picture, the one from before the rain came.

But still she remained butterfly.

As butterfly, she attempted to rebuild a cocoon, so she could crawl inside and wake up transformed to the time before.

As butterfly, she attempted to fly so high so she could leave behind all that was below. As butterfly, she tried to protect herself in armor, to shield her from the coming arrows. As butterfly, she tried to smear herself in masks and makeup, to pretend.

She tried and tried to no avail, and remained but a butterfly broken and alone, who knew of this land of before, when all about the rest had seemingly forgotten.

Until the time came.

And she heard an echo from the depths of her. And whispers poured in as the dew and quenched her unyielding thirst. She was shown then the way to caterpillar land. She was shown then how to bring peace to the butterfly. She was given the secret, the promise: a ray of hope so slender and tender that only this butterfly could keep safe.

And she did, inside of her deep, carried the ray day and night through years. Until the time came, and she knew what to do.

And so, with the coming season, with her heart knowing, as the light called from within, she set to spinning her ray, set her thoughts to words, so the world would know of the caterpillars, of the butterfly, of how the journey of broken, was also a journey of hope.

And in her weaving, the light shined and shined so bright from within, that the other lost butterflies found a way to this little Sam. And soon there were so many butterflies collected, that their wings together moved to carry them. And they moved and moved together, at last returning back home to the land of caterpillar, to the place they remembered of innocence and love, to the place of unreason and truth, to the place they could dance again in the spectrum of light united in their beauty. In a place where everywhere they looked they saw a reflection of self, and in so seeing realized the butterfly, though lost, had been found.

And so they danced, because of the promise of who they were, because of the place inside they kept all these years, they danced. And slowly they let go. Slowly the armor came off.

And slowly the light of the caterpillar shone through each of them so brilliantly that the world began to see that butterflies don’t have to let go of the caterpillar to fly.

Day 209: Checking Out Men

| Aspergers Girls

I was going to write about this awesome salad I made…….that’s guacamole along the edges, and beets I peeled and steamed, and all organic!

Or my adorable Violet (aka Spastic Colon) that I overfed with people-food so much that she threw up all over the house. This is her looking at me wondering why I didn’t take her on my walk to the lake. It was 95 degrees outside, that’s why. And you, Violet, poop out after one lap when it gets over 70 degrees. You no longer like the sun. She didn’t understand.

Well, I guess, I just did write about both, but not at length. Here’s the real scoop….

I’ve been walking around the lake near our house, once or twice a day. While I’m walking, I practice eye contact. Eye contact is not something I learn naturally, and not something I ever feel comfortable with. Not something I enjoy. And not something that I like practicing.

I “taught” myself how to make eye contact with strangers at the age of thirty-five. I realized I was having a hard time at it (eye contact), and needed to make a change, the time I was attempting to look up at a male sales clerk at a local take-and-go pizza parlor, and I got so nervous, that I wrote a check for $400 instead of $14. He wasn’t eye candy or even close to my age. But pretty much all males under 80 and over 10 make me nervous. I didn’t realize the error in my ways, until the establishment cashed my check.

I get nervous looking at anyone I do not know well. Especially men. I have become much more comfortable with women my age and older, small children, and senior citizens. They feel safe to me. Every other age group, when I think about locking eyes, I squirm inside from nervousness.

I now set my eyes just beyond a person or on a person’s forehead, in an attempt to appear friendly and approachable. I’d say I make eye contact with 80% of the females I pass (like in a store) and about 40% of males, well maybe 20%.

Lately, I’ve been wearing sunglasses when I walk the lake, and a plastered on real-looking smile. I listen to music and this helps me smile. And I remember all the smiles I’ve been practicing in the mirror and on camera. My face fidgets all over the place, while my smile tries to find a home. I am more comfortable with my mouth closed. Though I think my teethy smile is prettier. So I probably look perplexed and intense when I smile.

My hugest practice-smiling comes when a man my age approaches me while passing me on the jogging/walking trail at the lake. There are typically a couple dozen of men my age any given day that pass me. I have learned, through trial and error, to stare down the female, if a couple approaches, before I glance very quickly at HER male with a smile. If I smile at the male first, I tend to get a very shifty-darty eyed look from the female. I find this interesting, but logical.

I have also found that men about ten years my senior or more, tend to smile at me first, and even nod or say hello, while men my age look suspicious. This could be me jumping to conclusions. I wonder if I should start taking notes.

With every person that passes me,  I stand up straighter, glance slightly that person’s way, and then look at the forehead. With sunglasses on, I can hover there longer. Sometimes I get nervous and move down to the chest or legs. Which in retrospect, maybe isn’t such a good path for my eyes to follow. The whole time I’m looking I have a cheesy closed-lip smile and I hold my breath.

I’ve been practicing really super hard, and was feeling fairly pleased with my progress. Until tonight. Now I’m going back to the proverbial drawing board in my mind and trying to connect the eye contact dots.

At the lake, on my last loop around, a man my age approached me. He came up real close. I think he ran up to me from his car. He said, “Hey,” grabbed my wrist gently, and placed a folded small piece of paper in my hand. Between the “Hey” and hand grabbing, I figured this guy had special needs and needed my help.

He didn’t. But that was my first thought—trusting soul I am.

And so I smiled big, wanting him to feel safe, if indeed he had special needs.

As he stood there, I unfolded the note and read it quickly. Kind of in shock, and not fully comprehending what I’d read, I fell back on habit and manners, smiled again, and said with a giddy voice, “Thank you!”

The note??

James. Phone number.

I saw you checking me out!

Text me your name.

Hmmmm…..I think I might need some more practice….

Day 206: Hot Dog! Bikini Shots!

| Aspergers Girls

I have written about going from Prude to Sexy in prior posts .

In pure delight, I have reached several of my goals regarding Prude to Sexy, including the guitar purchase and kayaking. I still desire to take those guitar lessons and start belly dancing. Might trade in the ankle tattoo idea for a belly button ring, though….

My middle son is convinced this is all a midlife crisis. My husband is quite smitten. And my dog, well she is happy as a clam with all the walking we’ve been doing. I’m averaging five to seven miles a day of walking, and hope to continue when the rain makes its way to my town and sticks around.

My BIG GOAL of bikini purchase and wearing the bikini in public was achieved last week at a lake with hundreds of people!

Although, in all honesty, my bikini is really “boy shorts.” But the attire is skimpy enough to qualify as bikini in my book. I haven’t worn a bikini or anything like it in over twenty years. My stomach hadn’t seen the light of days in decades.

When I wore my bikini at the lake, I spent the whole two hours processing with my husband about my bikini and my body. I still harbor some childhood bleak memories of naked grownups at nude beaches.

And I’ve been revisiting the past, some of the haunting tauntings that occurred in my freshman year of high school on the east coast, where kids called me slut and such because of my figure.

I’m learning to embrace my body….and reprogramming thoughts I have about words like voluptuous. 

It’s taken me over a week to post my bikini photo, and this IS a thumbnail size photo. But it counts! OH, and did I mention, since February, I lost 21 pounds?

And for those of you that want the Full Effect…..here you go!!!!