After more than two months, I finally feel the artistic part of me returning. It was a long, dry summer, even in the humid damp northwest, without my creative peace.
Today I woke up motivated to figure out how to record my voice. I haven’t perfected the process yet; it seems in life I always come super close to accomplishing something but that there is always a sliver of ‘flaw.’
I’ve noticed these flaws in my paintings, my writing, my poetry. I’ve noticed these flaws in the way I see myself and in the way I see the world. It seems I move through the world in thought and action, in voice and speech, in whatever I do, just slightly off, just slightly flawed. But I have come to a comfortable place through my flaw-like ways.
I have redressed and renamed this word and concept called flaw. I have built him into something desirable, worthy, and lovable.
He is me. And I am him.
I am flawed and I am brilliant because of my flaw-worthiness.
I am fantastic in all the ways I am not exact.
I create in an unusual manner with odd utensils and peculiar techniques, the features super big and the images somewhat askew.
But I create, and I create from the heart—a heart I recognize as pure, untouched and still whole.
I am me in all I do.
I am honest and rich with imagination.
I am spectacular in my unlimited ability to share and over-share, again and again.
I am magnificent in the way I can untangle the images in my mind and bleed them out into a formidable string of comprehensible parts.
I like how my mind is despite the lingering doubts, the trials and the tribulations.
I like that I am authentic—authentically silly, authentically child-like, authentically caring.
I like that I understand the depths of myself.
Even though I remain a mystery, I can still feel the endlessness and eternity that is me.
I can still feel.
And that is a gift.
To feel in this intensity and not walk blinded and lost.
Yes, I am a befuddled mess at times.
Often I am slipping into some stream of goopy mind-trap.
But I am a glorious befuddled mess.
I am interesting.
I am profoundly wise.
I am beautiful in the way I chisel away at myself wanting and longing to find the pieces beneath and wishing to do away with the unneeded weight and debris.
I am rude. I am mean. I am a poophead at times.
And that’s me, too.
This embraceable mess of me.
I hug myself.
I hug the supercilious parts, the extreme parts, the worrying parts, the merrymaking parts, even the parts that sit and panic about the time, about the wasting of the day, about the rules that I am forgetting, misplacing, or seemingly never learned.
I squeeze me into the goodness I am.
Holding me in the light of love.
Yes, I am a failure.
Yes, I am success.
I redress these words, too.
Yes, I am everything at once and nothing combined.
I am infinitely shifting and changing and transforming.
Reborn again and again into myself, and still so very much the same as I was decades before.
I can still see me there.
Still see me here.
This little girl with her heart of gold.
I see her hopes and dreams.
I see her innocence.
There is nothing wrong with me.
Absolutely nothing.
I just refused to grow up to the ways of the world.
I refused to lose a part of myself that is truth.
I refused to let go of me.
I am still me.
And I am glad.
I have been living through a familiar dread—one that I have carried with me my entire life.
A major part of my predicament is in the stringing of my thoughts—in the way my mind instinctually expands off one concept onto another. At times I seem to be thinking, or at minimum existing, at multiple levels. Not in a psychedelic way; yet, in a very definite effectual state in which I am neither here nor there, but everywhere. There aren’t any lights or awakenings, but there exists this extremeness of a structure or building, as if I were a skyscraper itself expanding out in exponential infeasible directions beyond the view of the naked eye. And here, I slip simultaneously beyond what I am able to see and into the place of invisibility.
I recognize I am absent, with my faraway stare. I recognize I have lost my leash to the rest of self. I see from beyond that I am standing outside of where I am, holding a string to the other place of where the rest of me exists; my body in most ways remaining a shell.
In life as in fiction, I can be watching a scene play out, and at the same instant be analyzing the characters’ personalities, the actors’ personalities, the screen writer’s purpose, the landscape, the environment and feasible psychological ramifications of the spoken words and actions of the people. My mind seems spider-like in its ways, capable of reaching out in a potentially infinite array of directions, with its spindly legs sprouting and spurning in fanatical rupture. The rhythmic zeal moves from abstract to concrete, and I am swept up in the weaving of a thousand stitching legs—the legs themselves as streams pouring out of a waterfall, each spawning another waterfall. Picture after picture. Image after image dripping down in a thousand ways. All of this birthed into a whirlpool of thought that is neither disorganize or organized, but collected in the same manner in which one would forge food for the winter or build a nest for safety. Here is where everything is.
In sitting to do or think of anything, I am sitting as the aching spider, as the legs, as the fountains, as the streams, as the nest. Some large living machine pulsating with connections. I can sense this happening, as I am thinking about thinking about thinking. I take an elevator in thought or jump through the illusion of self that is in actuality the mirrors set upon mirrors—each image further, smaller, deeper, but just as real and just as exact.
I don’t actually see a spider and legs, and the rest, but I feel this movement as such; where if I had to describe the pulsating chains of me, this is as close as I could come. But in truth there isn’t anything I can follow or find, just this sense of substantial never ending depth akin to the collective pool of unconsciousness or perhaps liken to a life-size mold where self enters to be reinvented again and again.
Here in this space of no space, I meander through the chambers that hold the record of all experience, shifting through the files and bringing up into the light that which has yet to be discovered: a scaffolding mechanism reviewing what has been, what will be, and where I ought be.
The trouble begins, need I say trouble, when I open the files of ‘ought.’ There is where the stinging nettle comes, with the burning so distracting that all else falls down. The ‘ought’ files take over. For some reason or another, my essence absorbs the rules, regulations, how-tos, structure, system of being, and so on. I don’t know why, and it hurts to try to figure out the why of why I need to know the whys. I just do.
And in so being immersed in the ‘ought’ files, I get lost. I become over-expanded, swelled, and pressurized. A sponge in a pool expansive and foreboding, each movement of thought yet another burden onto self. Here in the pool of ‘oughts’ I become confused, primarily because there exists contradiction beyond contradiction. One school of thought against the other. One way of being beyond the other. Each standing in line shouting to be heard. Here is a room that has too many choices and too many directions. Too much depth. For a child as I be, I become mesmerized and trapped in the gooey notions of ‘ought.’ I begin deciphering each segment, each crumb, reaching the same conclusion continually: That all is an illusion and all is not.
I stand there ashamed of my own being for not being who I ‘ought’ to be. As I stand there, too, erect in self proclaiming who I am. I stand there crying in the confusion. And I sink there too, the strokes of my arms useless, as I wade through the muck of nonsense.
I become useless onto myself with so many options that lead to either dead ends or the opposite or the contradictory voice of a mass of many; the ‘oughts’ tie up the whole of the machine into a ball of inability. Motionless enters. I remain trapped, focusing and refocusing on what is evidentially lies or mistruths. I hear the echoes of the all. The ways in which the ‘wrongness’ hurts the masses. The ways in which we are each silently tormented in our minds by the rules established by the ones who are equally predispositioned to torment. It becomes a jumble of confusion and mayhem; something far beyond the enchantment of mystery and far closer to the bowels of a bleak twisted jail yard.
I am myself here, still. Uncorrupted, unmoved, but nonetheless made into something I don’t want to be. I am crying on the inside while strong on the outside. And then I am strong more so in the depths of self and made weak on the outer layers. I am bathed in this place of non-discrepancy, baptized in a sense by the very alive confusion. Drowned too, unable to breathe, and then spat out, left as naked and brought back to this place I am now. Here. Present. Aware. Alive.
I go through this in a way so swift and abstract, yet so expansive in distance and very real, that I cannot help but to be altered, existing as this being reborn and reborn again, through the loud shattering chaos that the world whispers as truth.
People with Aspergers, in my opinion, often have high verbal fluency and are able to think of many things about one given letter, topic, subject, item, etc.
I think that people with Aspergers have a high-intelligence that can be demonstrated by their ability to scaffold off of one given idea. Sometimes this processing ability adds to stress and misunderstandings, and the appearance of ADHD like behaviors.
As a person with Aspergers, my own high-verbal fluency can cause high anxiety. A simple action, like my husband showing me tile for a potential bathroom remodel, can trigger a reaction in my mind in which I am jumping from one image to another. In the case of the tile for the bathroom, the tile itself is an object trigger, triggering a series of sequenced events in my mind.
On seeing the tile, my thought process went like this:
We could make cosmetic improvements to our home’s bathroom, but we don’t own the house. If we improve the house, should we buy the house? If we don’t buy where will we live? Should we sell our other house? What should we ask for selling price? What if the house doesn’t sell? Well what is a fair price? Maybe we should continue to rent out the house. That makes sense. But what about….
All of these thoughts bombard me. Wherein my high verbal fluency can lead to fantastic writings and the successful completion of projects, the same fluency can cripple me emotionally. As a result of a number of triggers, I can find myself unable to be constructive for hours or even an entire day. Certain triggers can leave me immobile for most of a week. I get lost in the loop of my own thinking.
In the future, the tile could again trigger these same emotional responses in me, and therefor the tile could feasibly remain a trigger for an extended period of time.
Here is an activity that demonstrates the concept of verbal fluency.
This was a quick activity I did this morning. If you wish to partake in an easy four-minute activity, then read the first section “Preparation” and then stop before continuing onward.
Preparation: Without scanning down further to read, find a piece of paper, a pen, and a stopwatch. When you are ready to begin the activity, scan down and read the directions. (You can type a list instead of writing.)
Directions:
Don’t read past this until your list is done.
1. Set a timer to four minutes.
2. Write a list of anything you can think of that you can do with a pencil.
3. Stop after four minutes.
Read below when done with your list.
**************************************** My husband’s list (written)
Write
Erase
Measure
Roll
Bounce
Whittle
Wedge
Break it
Bite it
Eat it
Flick it
Throw it
Lever to lift
Stab with it
Sharpen it
Poke it
Spin it
Stand it on end
Spear things with it
Build something with it
Draw
Paint the pencil or draw on pencil
Drumstick for music
Lift things with it
My list (typed)
Miniature sword for a mouse or small creature
Stabbing utensil for defense of intruder
A rolling device to place on table for a contest
A stick to poke bugs with outdoors
A shovel to pull up weeds
A massage roller for the arm or back
A way to make a fake mustache..hold up to face.
A tiny baton
Break it up to use as a pawn in chess game
Place on paper and use as a spinner
Use for spin the bottle on flat surface
Poke holes in something (or finger)
Break off lead and use the lead to draw and smudge on paper
Use to connect yarn and make a toy like sling shot
Bang on a drum or other object
Bookmark
Flag holder (use tape)
To keep a door from closing all the way (may need heavier object)
Stir coffee
Take hair out of bathtub ring
Fidget between fingers when nervous
Write with (of course)
Play fetch with dog
Keep a plant held up in garden
Poke to see how dry the dirt in a plant pot is
Play catch
Place under bedsheet to bug/irritate someone
Dress up in clothes and make a doll (add yarn)
Sketch, trace, smudge
Sharpen it
Throw it away
Chew it
Look at it
Dig into garbage disposal
Twirl hair
Conclusions:
My husband is a ‘neuro-typical.’ Also known as an NT. He is considered mainstream and typical when compared to a person who has a neurological syndrome such as Aspergers. I have Aspergers. When examining the two lists some interesting things come to mind. Of course I am a female and Bob is a male. So this aspect of gender also affects the results.
1. I saw what I would do with the pencil in full imagery and thusly often included exactly what the pencil would be used for. I added specifics. I didn’t just write ‘sword.’ I wrote “a miniature sword for a small mouse or creature.” Bob wrote a simple answer without specifics. It didn’t cross his mind to do it any other way. He thought he got the point of the question and answered accurately.
2. I paid attention to detail because in the back of my mind I didn’t want to confuse anyone that might read my list. Bob didn’t consider what other people would think at all.
3. I didn’t list logical things such as ‘write’ until the creative aspects were thought of. My mind immediately went to creativity. Bob’s mind immediately went to logical.
4. The question read what I “can do” with a pencil. In my mind I interpreted that question as actions and saw people or animals doing the action. In my mind someone or something always was attached to the pencil. In Bob’s mind it was only the pencil. He saw the pencil doing it in isolation.
5. I was actively involved emotionally with each thing I thought of, simultaneously evaluating if I’d like that action, how useful it was, and if it was truly feasible. I included minor details such as tape, flat surface, etc. to guide another or in essence to ‘prove’ it was feasible. Bob just thought about a pencil.
6. I knew in the back of my mind if I wrote short answers I could write a longer list but I had to add detail, even though I knew my list would be shorter. Bob didn’t even consider detail.
7. I saw the pencil naturally being used in my mind. Images popped up and I wrote what I saw. I used my environment to help me. If I saw I plant where I was sitting I could connect an idea. Bob didn’t look around his environment. He said he used ‘mental effort’ to come up with his answers.
8. I worried about my list. I questioned if all the ideas were valid. I questioned whether the one thing I started writing before the timer started counted. I worried about the time. I watched the clock. As the time ticked I evaluated in my mind how much time was left and the average number I was writing. I was distracted by the time and numbers. I thought about my typing speed and the typing speed verses writing speed. Bob worried about the amount of time left a little bit.
9. I pictured and evaluated each thing after I wrote it. As I went on to write the next thing on my list, I was still thinking about the first one. Had I used the right words, enough words, and described what I saw? For example I was concerned about the door wedge (to keep door from closing all the way) and thusly added ‘may need heavier object.’ I knew I couldn’t add more detail without taking up time, and that bothered me some. I could think of new items while still focusing on previous items at the same time. Bob just wrote his list. (He did say “that’s cool” when I read him this number nine; so there’s that.)
10. My thinking is complex. I wrote to keep a door from closing all the way (may need heavier object) and bang on drum or other object. Bob’s thinking was basic core segment from the start. He wrote wedge and drumstick.
My husband has a high verbal fluency. This is evident by the length of his list, and he was able to write without pause, until the timer stopped. He was able to think of many things. I have a high verbal fluency as well but my list was much different than my husband’s list. My list was affected by my imagination and thinking in pictures, and somewhat by my anxiety of time and worrying about what others would understand of what I wrote. Any person, NT or not NT, can have a high verbal fluency. But, as mentioned earlier, I think people with Aspergers generally will demonstrate high verbal fluency and use of imagination in their list.
Feel free to share your list and conclusions below in comment section.
I am one of the strongest people I know. And I don’t say that lightly. I have endured many trials and challenges. I cry a lot. But I don’t see tears as weakness, and don’t think I ever shall. I feel a lot, but I don’t think emotions are weakness either. In fact, I am not sure what weakness is anymore, beyond the giving up of self to take in the dictation of a world that is full of destruction and mayhem.
I have integrity. This is clear. By integrity, I don’t mean following manmade laws or rules, or upholding some established truth or way; by integrity, I mean honoring myself by speaking my inner truth.
It’s not an inner truth I could readily find before, nor do I think it’s an inner truth I would have found without great soul-searching and desire. It’s ironic to me, that the very things that spiritual entrepreneurs eventually long to dismiss, that being the emotions of anger and longing, are the very activators that motivate the self to seek to awaken the sleeping soul.
Recently, and for many years in my childhood, I had no choice but to be me. For when I am not; when I try to pretend, hide, deny, or create an illusion that is neither what I see or choose to see, I diminish my very light and openness to truth. I suffer. I suffer physically and spiritually, entirely twist myself in every portion.
By truths, I do not mean my truths of how things should be, or what people should do. I do not mean spiritual proclamation, and particularly not the spectator sport of religious dogma. What I mean by my truth, is my current understanding and perception of what is transpiring with me at a deep inner level.
This openness, this speaking of truth, this reality I reveal, even when I know that it is not the ‘whole’ truth, even when I know that it is only a limited, self-biased, environmental-, and social-influenced truth, a truth combined with biological factors, faith, and other past, future, and present influences, allows me to feel free. When I am my true self, it is if some dark prisoner within has been released and no longer made to suffer. It isn’t that I need to be heard, not even seen; it isn’t that I need to be understood, and I have no want to influence—it’s that I must purge the part of what is that lingers within.
It is confusion. It is murkiness. It is ugly. It is imaginative. It is fear. It is love. It is illusion. Or it is fact. Whatever it is makes not a difference. For this ‘what’ in whatever form, still is in the cell, still locked behind the iron bars of captivity. And until I dispel of the trapped essence, I feel trapped in myself.
This needing to dislodge of the ‘truth,’ of my inner workings, of my thoughts, I see not as a flaw, a disorder, or a burden. It is simply how I am made. And in this unencumbered, soul-filled sharing, I become unhindered onto myself and filled with a light of passion. In my sharing, whatever the sharing, however it is taken in by another, or even evaluated by self, the relief comes, and the once-standing suffering, the boil that was causing the distracting internal ache, bursts.
People mistake me as someone I am not. Not that I claim to be anything in particular. And, in full honesty, likely I am nothing beyond the interpretation of others; I’d still like to think I am not the negative spin people perpetuate me to be. Yet, in this world, there isn’t much to base a person’s worth on, beyond words, self-collected materialistic goods, appearance, mannerism, actions, and deeds. I suppose deeds is what I would prefer to be my legacy—my fruit…what I reap, what I leave.
Still, I know enough to know that what is said affects the bystander as much as any other attribute. I reason, I was judged, particularly in the past, on things that were beyond my understanding at the time.
I gather, and am quite frankly certain, I was judged by others by:
My tone of voice, my elation, my in-depth analysis, my passion, my ramblings, my obsessive interest in a topic, my need to dig deep in inquiry, my rapture of delight in the simplest of things, my uncommon queries, my quizzical expressions, my apparent disinterest, aloofness, or lack of attention, my inability to stay focused on the current topic, my want to review, repeat, and enlighten, my lack of gaps or pauses in thought and expression, my interrupting, my unyielding desire to solve through discourse and dialogue, my re-centering and refocusing on topic filtered through understanding and scaffolding of self and past experience, my intensity, my compassionate movements, my sighs, my large shocking eyes, my gestures of comical silliness, and on and on.
I imagine I was much like a tsunami in my youth: some bucket poured out and turned quickly into a gargantuan of pubescent demise and uproar.
In looking back now, I understand. I understand that I honestly thought everyone thought like me. I thought everyone had a million ideas in their head, endless creativity, the want to explode out the ‘whats’ and the ‘truths,’ and harbored that prisoner that yearned for release and badgered the master until unchained. I can’t imagine, still, what it would be like to not be this way. To not have the need to express what is inside.
Now, I know how to balance myself in conversation, at least usually. Actually, as of recent, I have grown rather submissive, quiet, and somewhat more of an introspective recluse. Perhaps even a bit physically aloof in my stature and demeanor. But my behavior isn’t a form of repression, or oppression, or trying to fit in, anymore. My way of being is a natural balance.
I am finding peace in expressing myself through written words and visual arts now, more so than trying to spew out through verbal processing aloud. Talking doesn’t soothe me like it used to. Certainly at times a conversation with a close friend uplifts my spirit and helps me find my balance, let’s me know I am not alone in my thoughts. Yet, for the most part, I no longer have a need to spew and spin and loop most days.
However, I am finding through creation I am able to explode bit by bit, piece by piece, and find refuge. I am finding solace in silence, more and more. The opportunity for analysis and deeper understanding, if it arises, seems to happen more with my spiritual discourse with my higher source, in my ability, shall I say ‘gift,’ to directly connect to something beyond me.
Creation has been my outlet at last.
I was born an artist, but the world didn’t let me know that. The world did little but try to tear the artist out of me. To dig right into my chest and tear the heart right smack out. To leave me with a hole filled with rules and regulations. And how I was made wrong.
Even in creation, once in a while the ‘ways’ try to sneak in. The ‘how to’s,’ ‘the when’s,’ ‘the where’s.’ I am working more eagerly and happily to dismiss the lingering worldly voices of the ‘right way.’
I never went through a period of my life where I allowed myself to be rebellious or free. I quickly slipped from youthful innocence to a shell of protection, the shell primarily built on good deeds and goodness. I think I have finally reached the ‘bullshit’ phase of my adult years. When I can at last say ‘bullshit’ to the guidelines of who I am supposed to be.
I am recognizing slowly a rebalancing of self: a merging of the spiritual-wise self with the earth-bound warrior. I am recognizing I can be fierce in my kindness. I can allow moments of fleeting anger and disappointment. I can be all of my emotions and all of me. And in this I am finding a greater degree of freedom. I am coming full circle, back to this me I was long ago, and forward to the me I am yet to become.
And I am finding all of the aspects of self right here in the moment, in the realization that all of me, every part of me, is beautiful. The lust, the love, the angst, the anger, the desire, the letting go, the release, the needing to connect….all of me is splendid, and continues to be so. Ever so gently I am becoming my potential, when all along I was already there.
This morning a man skipped out in front of me, where I was sitting in my vehicle. I watched as he went on his merry-way. I thought that is joyful to see such glee; a man become little child free. And then his trousers, too loose, slipped down to expose a buttocks covered end to end in huge red boils. I didn’t know what to think then.
I feel a dreamer awoken from a dream she thought she’d understood.
I keep visualizing this huge bubble, a vast space encompassing the whole of my world. And I have floated up, much like a giant balloon, air-filled and light to touch, with open palms penetrating the top of the bubble. At least what appears to be the top. I look down to see the everything that was. I look up to see the everything beyond. I linger, my hands pressing.
Today I awoke with great angst. I feel emptied of much of what I used to be, but still entirely me in my making. I have this great capacity for bliss, and then, in turn, the greater degree for pain. I can delve into the pain so thick and rich, it is almost like a buttery-sugar sauce poured on grandest dessert; only it hurts, and burns, and penetrates a part I knew not existed.
I know things; and I hesitate to tell, because all these rules of telling circulate in my mind. My heart knows, but she sleeps when the mind is awake. And when heart awakes, the mind seems so distant and unconcerned. There is a balancing I find difficult, almost unmanageable. How to be me and not to be me. How to be in this pain-body ripe with thought and idea, and still recognize my ideas are nothing. I am only an assumption, an accumulation, a dream herself: a dreamer that is the dream, the dream that is the dreamer.
I don’t like this in between place; how I can feel so entirely divine and one with All and then shift back to this emptiness that ponders the empty beyond empty. I don’t like the pain of discipline. The pain of experiencing the now. The pain of avoiding the fear and agony. But equally in degree, is the turbulence of letting the thoughts enter. I be either gatekeeper in mental pain controlling the switchboard or vastly unburdened and free in my tormenting fear. I have no other way to be. Unless in bliss or in the spell of hearing the lessons—but even that must end.
The lessons fill me entirely. I hear the truth, or what appears the truth, over and over, in these huge gigantic sweepings of knowing. But then heart knows not what to do. How to be. How to share. Or if to shut her mouth and dare not speak. For I recognize my insignificance.
Still I be this mind, and still I be this body. I feel more phantom than ever, wandering about and wishing for the same limbs and eyes; so at least all else, the people and forlorn view, still seemed to witness same. Instead all seems a strange land, and I a strange woman undone and brought forward into the nothing.
I am spectator now. Victim before. Victim no more except onto myself.
And here the responsibility comes: the demon thoughts of how to be no longer and yet to be. The rules enter, as before, but now at different levels: the ways of this new found world.
Such intensity, such newness, such wonderment, that I grow speechless in my speech. And still there is this pulse, this heart, this want to be. Who am I that can breathe and feel, but still see beyond what is?
I am imploded in sadness here within the making of rules; watching the dictator fear slip through as guise of the rules of how to be outside the rules. There are layers upon layers of rigidness, in which I slice; yet, upon slicing, the other boundary emerges, two-fold, gigantic in appearance, a big-brother to the last, the roar ferocious, with a truth so unbearable in its light that I know not whether to glide into and drink or run away in terror.
I have slayed the master of you—the one I put upon throne and made my judge and personhood. But now I must face the jury—the many pawns I be, scurrying about as if to not fall off the checkered board. And still they fall, one by one, into some abyss. And still I be.
It is mind-boggling and dangerous, and I know not how to stop and how to proceed. I cry out for direction and there is always the knowing, the answer, the gift of love and understanding. But even this has become like too much sugar, too much goodness, too much to see in a place of such blindness.
I can write, and then open book of one form, and find what I have written. I can see, and then awake from the seeing, and turn to see the happening. Sometimes the time seems to be naught, and the naught seems to be wrapped in multiple-parallel happenings. What was there becomes not there, and what was not there, becomes there. I can’t understand it, nor do I try, but still it comes.
At moments I feel forlorn and un-chosen by my own self, granted much with no basket for carrying and no foundation for relief.
I can’t be this or that. So I must be nothing. But there is no guidebook for nothing. For even latching onto nothing is latching onto something. There are vast contradictions and complexities; the very uncertainty itself as truth. I see, but to tell another I see is at once defaming my own seeing. Announcing I am something in the mere wanting to share the thought of nothing.
Before I allowed myself to be judged and formed and reformed. I was still a part. I was the puppet in a play. I belonged even in my thoughts of un-belonging. Now I don’t even un-belong.
Yesterday, I felt the spike of isolation. In my new finding of naught, I allowed myself to venture on a walk around the lake. I took in the nature; I took in the guiding voice; I took in the pulsing love; I saw about me beauty. I tried, in this state to reach out, but I remained entirely invisible. The harder I smiled, the more I tried to be seen, the less I was seen. Each passerby, say one, paid passing glance, and many frowned. I couldn’t penetrate whatever I was in. I couldn’t be witnessed. I couldn’t be formed. I couldn’t be made into another’s thought and interpretation. I was nothing I could see, and none that could see me. I was lost in my own finding of nothing.
I became attached to the un-attachment. I became attached to the bliss of not being, and in so doing, became the misery of aloneness.
And so this morning, I wept deeply inside. I woke up not knowing how to be in a world so undone to me, inside a woman so invisible.
Again, I walked the same path; now the sun had been dismissed and the clouds awoke the gulls. The birds sang overhead and I cried in silence below. I wore a black hood, a black jacket, dark trousers, and a gloomy expression. The tears welled up. But still I walked. And this time people saw me; they made effort to smile. They made effort to say hello. They waved. They saw my pain and in my pain could be.
And so I am left in wonderment of how to walk in this world. Shall I be the merrymaker unseen and isolated in a world of games? Or shall I be the miserable one embraced with open arms by the invisible phantoms I long to call home?
Everyday Asperger's 