I talk to my higher power a lot. All day really. I talk to my angels, Jesus, nature, God, my guardians of light, people who have passed on. And I continually examine my mind, my thoughts, my actions—all the time. I don’t know how to breathe without focusing on the light, on my journey, on my life’s calling.
But I am human. I falter. I stumble. I become fixated and obsessed. I worry. I forget. I forget my purpose and the gifts I carry.
Then the guilt comes. The analysis. The fret and worry. And I am engulfed in should and should nots. How I could be better, more perfect, less human. My mind spins in review of all the reasons I am not enough. All the sources I turn to instead of light—the things, the people. I make validation my idol. I make love of self my goal. I forget why I am here. I forget to release expectations. I forget I am love. I am perfection. I am pure light.
My gift is in my message. In my story. In my words. In my ability to share my truth from the depths of me.
But I forget.
Sometimes I realize that I am writing for my own interest.
Sometimes I write only to be heard or seen by one special person, a friend, a lover.
Sometimes I write in hopes of discovery.
Sometimes I write so someone, anyone, will take note.
Sometimes I write to count the number of like buttons hit on my blog.
Sometimes I write in hopes of the perfect comment from a reader.
Sometimes I write because if I do not I will absolutely explode.
I think of these reasons. And I weep.
I think these are wrong. I think I am wrong.
I cry and beg for forgiveness. For forgiveness for being human.
I plea to be led back to source. For release from my selfish ways.
I weep and weep.
I beat myself up.
My light dims.
Until spirit gently answers.
Like he always does.
In the kindest of ways.
In the form of a gift sent by a distant friend.
A box
that opens
To bubble wrap
Filled with
A mini-zoo of plastic animals
Each animal with a small uplifting handwritten note attached
Like the rhino ~ stamina, solidity, a creature of substance and expansive power.
Each with a special message for my spirit
Like the Polar Bear ~ The embodiment of the spirit of the north–one who holds ancient wisdom and shamanic powers.
I have recently formed a friendship with a woman with Aspergers, and I have to say, it is the easiest friendship I have ever had. Though it is long distance, we chat every day, sometimes for hours. What I notice about her are the same traits I notice about me. Our lives and our thinking are so parallel, it is almost creepy.
Essentially, we think and process the same way. We have the same worries. We see things in the same light. We both require the same security in conversation. We need validation, and we give out the whole of ourselves. We are able to focus on one another entirely. Everything else can stop. We become priority. Talking to her is the easiest thing I’ve done in my life. She is genuine, open, and entirely honest. She analyzes everything she says before writing, and then analyzes it again after writing—just as I do. She frets over her words, as I do. She wonders whether she is good enough for a friend, too intense, too different. She over-compensates with love and compassion to be certain I feel safe and understood. She offers advice straight from the heart, only because she has a calling from God to do so. She sits on every word, measuring the potentiality for miscommunication and the probable consequences of her message. She spins and loops about what she has said, and how the words might affect our relationship. She thinks about me often throughout her day; I am never an afterthought. She loves me whole-heartedly. She knows when I need her to sit and be with me, and puts aside everything else in her life to show me she cares. She takes the time to write to me, no matter what is happening in her life. As soon as she knows I am available to chat, she comes my way with a smile, heart, or message. She is my soul-sister, mirroring me in every way, and I so love what I see.
Through my friendship with this special lady and through her comforting words expressing her own experience with friends, I am just beginning to understanding the difference between the way I communicate to friends I am passionate about and the way people without Aspergers communicate back to me. I am realizing that many times in my life, I was ultimately not rejected, but that my friends didn’t understand my communication style, misinterpreted my words and actions, and were actually incapable of duplicating my enthusiasm and dedicated attention.
I find this true today with another friendship I have formed with a very kind and loving person. Though this person is one of the sweetest souls I have met, at the same time, we communicate so entirely differently. This is no fault of anyone’s—and is solely the result of our brains being wired differently. Where I am as eager as a puppy to jump all over the conversation, day or night, anytime, anywhere, my new friend prioritizes, plans, evaluates, and places me within a schedule. Aspies generally don’t do that! We have this gift of focusing entirely on what we are interested in and what are hearts want at the moment. Everything, and I mean everything else in our world, disappears when we are wrapped up in our passion. Bills might not get paid, beds not made, pets not fed—we don’t neglect, we just forget as we are sucked into another realm.
To me this is a form of escape. I can do this with certain people, and my communication with them becomes my temporary haven away from all the stresses of the world—away from the constant overload of sensory input, and worries of everything that is shouting to be done, the continual spinning of thoughts, ideas, emotions, and need, the pounding fear of the world’s expectations and anticipated actions. In having a special friend, I am able to forget myself momentarily and be only a part of his or her world: just me on a stage with them, with everything else on hold. I’ve done this my entire life. And I do believe this aspect is a primary part of me, nothing to be fixed or changed; this is just me. Living on this planet, if I did not have opportunity to escape, I would surely hovel in a corner and never leave. This world is ultimately a very scary place for me.
I am also realizing that I hurt much more inside when I talk to people than when I talk to my new friend with Aspergers. This, again, is no one’s fault, and purely reflects the dynamics of two people with like minds joining verses two people with very different minds connecting. It does not matter how sensitive, caring, loving, pure and honest a friend is, if he or she doesn’t have Aspergers, he or she will never truly get me. That’s not to say I can’t have very fulfilling friendships with all types of people; it just means I know deep down inside that unless a person has a brain that functions like me, there will always be this piece about me that the other person will not understand. Whether he or she is aware of this makes no difference, because I am aware of this.
I am working through some hurt now. Trying to understand why my needs are entirely different than most people’s needs in a relationship. Backtracking through all the past times I overwhelmed, confused, or was misunderstood. I am acknowledging that broken relationship were not because of whom I am as a person. Broken relationships were a result of me communicating the only way I knew how.
Some of the things I’ve noticed happening in the new relationship I have with someone that does not have Aspergers:
1) I am sad that my friend is not always able to talk to me at every moment of the day.
2) I continually worry I over-shared, and at the same time cannot help myself from over-sharing. I get this overwhelming urge to share. And have this urgency about me to expose my truths, as if the world shall end tomorrow and if I don’t get my thoughts out, I shall die unknown and unheard.
3) I want to know EVERYTHING about my friend. Every fear, love, past event, thought, experience.
4) I wonder why the person has not answered my message in a timely fashion. (For me that would mean within a second of when I wrote the message, because I ought to be number one priority! Insert laughter here.)
5) I question why the person wants to be my friend, as I am so intense, so prone to having my feelings hurt, in continual need of validation, and questioning my worth.
6) I worry beyond worry that my friend does not see the purity of my heart. And when I am misunderstood a thousand daggers pierce my soul. For if my friend sees me as mean, manipulative, a liar, lacking compassion, closed-minded, angry, vengeful, demeaning, or the like, than I know he or she is not seeing me.
7) I want to be seen. I want to open myself up like a book so the friend can read every single page and know my beauty. I want to shine so bright that my friend believes me when I say I love unconditionally.
8) I try constantly to say the exact word. I fret over every sentence. If I am chatting online, I reread everything I wrote ten times, wondering if I chose the wrong words, wondering how the person will interpret, wondering if I am expressing the heart of me.
9) I want to delete most of what I say. I sometimes have an odd sense of humor, or don’t get something, like a simple word, or simple explanation. My friend’s innocent comment can send me off the deep end, send me spiraling down to earth, with a heavy landing, so that I feel deadened and crushed inside.
10) I find that I am so very innocent and naïve compared to other people. In conversation, I feel as if I am about the age of ten or even younger. A little girl still searching the eyes of the person I adore and wondering if he or she adores me. A little girl needed to be swept up and hugged and told how beautiful she is, how special, how loved. To know that I am unconditional accepted and very much appreciated. I long to be told, I love you, every few minutes, in order to feel safe, in order to understand I am not being judged, misinterpreted, or thought about in a “bad” light.
11) I am just realizing I don’t really understand love at all. Love to me means something entirely different than to most people. I don’t understand the degrees of love, how love builds, how friendship starts out at one level, and then grows into love. I love all at once. This huge bundle of love. And I plop this love right down at my friend’s feet. If I didn’t feel that bundle of love, I wouldn’t be the person’s friend. It’s very simple to me. Of course I love you, you are my friend. What does like you a lot even mean? Does that mean I like you for now, and might always like you, but if you prove to be more special, I might consider loving you? That hurts me. The word like hurts me. If love is the end point, then why am I placed at the starting line? Why wouldn’t a friend love me from the very beginning? Can he or she not feel the same connection, bond, and love as me?
12) I sometimes say things, hint things, and describe things that are very clear to me, and the other person doesn’t get what I am saying at all. I sometimes do things that take the whole of me, take so much risk, preparation, and forethought, but my actions aren’t met with the same extreme of emotions. Speaking to my friend sometimes is akin to tearing out my bleeding heart, setting my heart pounding on the table for my friend to see, and my friend casually walking by and saying, “Oh, that’s nice.” Only to then continue walking. I take out my heart and think the person will know, but my friend does not. My friend does not know that everything I say is a dynamic risk.
13) I don’t know how to turn down my intensity. I don’t have light and carefree days. I don’t have a way to shut me down or dim my emotion. I don’t even have waves of love. Everything remains level at a very high extreme. Nothing is little or unimportant. Nothing downplayed. Nothing forgotten. Everything remembered and brought back up to the surface over and over for reanalysis. Scenarios are played out in the mind of how I could have said something better. How I could communicate clearer. How I should communicate less. How I should be less enthusiastic. I swing a harsh whip at my mind, slash and slash with should haves and could haves.
14) Simple statements from my friend can send me spinning. What does that mean? Did I do something wrong? Did I blow this friendship? Was I too intense? What does my friend want me to say? How should I say this? What if I am wrong? What if I am misjudged? Did I say too much already? Should I laugh now? Should I offer support? Is advice okay? Am I a bore, a nuisance, a weirdo, too odd to keep around? Why is the conversation over? Why not talk more? Why am I not a priority? Am I not nice enough? Not kind enough? Not pretty enough?
15) I cherish my friend to no end. I would walk the end of the earth for my friend. I love my friend. I hold my friend up high. I see the light within. I see the purity of heart. I go straight to the soul and relish in the beauty. I see the love within. I see the potentiality for greater communication and connection. I see so much, but am standing across a bridge with a cavernous pit between us. I long to cross the bridge, but the bridge is broken, and I can only stand alone and stare out into the distance, reaching, and longing to touch.
The crows are among the world’s most intelligent birds. Crows can be aggressive, quarrelsome, and sometimes playful. The voice once heard is not easily forgotten. They have an astounding range of calls. There language is complicated and still being discovered. They are excellent puzzle-sovers, have good memory, and quickly learn. They live in community, support their own, and love for life. They hold the spirit of kings.
This is the song I used to sing and imitate…when I was like ten. As I’ve said, I didn’t carry a barometer for appropriate behavior. I loved this song. I loved Natalie Wood. In my mind, this was a perfect song to sing in middle school in the cafeteria, while swaying my hips about and tossing my hair. Trouble started when I didn’t outgrow my delight in life—this innocence to dance and sing, and just be. Big trouble, as I approached high school, while still a ten year old in my mind.
I got downright cute and sexy approaching freshman year in high school, but didn’t know it. Once I turned fourteen, I always thought I was ugly. I was entirely clueless why the boys gawked and the girls jeered. Why the boys wanted my number and the girls shunned me. To me, I was still some scrawny kid inside. I didn’t see my sexy, my curves, my short shorts, my passionate eyes. I didn’t see what the others saw. As I matured into pretty, in my mind, I was still a little twiggy girl with buckteeth, a chipped front tooth, stringy hair, high-water hand-me-down jeans, and a flat chest. I had no idea I’d blossomed.
This was the other song I sang loudly in the middle school cafeteria
I used the moves and all. I was special. I was confident. I was damn awesome!
Before I turned fourteen, I was engorged with passion, full of life, energy, and the feeling I could conquer the world. At the end of eighth grade, Mother plucked me from the coast of California and moved me to Massachusetts to live with her longtime lover. All at once, I knew no one, was loved by no one, and knew not who I was.
This was a time of unmentionables. I transformed from wild stallion to fearful doe. I hid. I stayed in dark rooms. I pretended not to exist—this after being driven down a long country road by our twenty-something neighbor who was married to the flat-chested lady I babysat for the next door over. A scene, I blurred and blanched out of memory, that sucked out my passion, that transported the little girl I had been to a frightened woman, terrified of life, terrified to live.
I stopped living at the age of fourteen. I just stopped. My daily laughter turned to daily tears. I no longer danced. I no longer sang. I just existed. It was then I began to see my past, to compare what I’d been through to what my peers had been through. I recognized all at once how different I was, how damaged, how hopeless.
I stopped living because I finally saw my mother. I saw who she was and how she never was who I longed for her to be. I stopped living because I was ostracized at school, made fun of for my “California” looks, for my clothes, for my curves. I stopped living because when I looked in the mirror I was something horrible, unrecognizable. I wasn’t me anymore. The spirit of me, the joy, the lover of life, had been siphoned out of me. I was staring at a stranger in my skin. My eyes dulled. My heart numbed. And my entire view of life grey.
I no longer trusted the world or anyone in it. And I didn’t know where to go, how to be, and knew not enough to tell a soul of my agony. I angst perpetually from want, desire, and deafening loneliness. I ached for companionship, for people, for someone to shout out they loved me, for someone to see me—for someone to find me, wherever I’d gone.
I dreamt of ending my life. I dreamt of my prince, my twin flame, my soul mate, and would spend hours with him, in some enchanted place my spirit held. I imagined wherever he was, he would know the heart of me, that his heart would match mine, that he would be holding my heart, and would someday find me. I wept and wept and wept for him as much as I wept for the lost me.
I walked emptied.
It wasn’t until a few weeks ago that my spirit returned. I don’t know how, or why, it just did.
I have ever changed. This joy-filled, spirit of light has once again turned on, filling me with child-like glee. I have a plethora of things I want to do. A list that keeps growing and a spirit that keeps yearning and celebrating. I’m dancing inside. I’m walking on air. I’m not caring how silly I look. I’m loving me. I’m embracing my beauty, the beauty I lost thirty years ago.
Only in waking, some three decades later, I am finding myself in a strange land somewhat, surrounded by strange people I almost don’t recognize. Questioning my place, my role, my purpose. Wondering who I was for the last thirty years. Who I’d become. What choices I’ve made. How I’d let myself suffer. How I’d numbed my life.
I’m not recognizing photos of me from a month ago. Not understanding where I’ve been and who was inside of me for so very long. I can’t explain this transformation. I just can’t.
But looking into my eyes, I can see that the little girl who danced passionately without fear in the cafeteria, swinging her hips back and forth and tossing her hair about, is back. The lovely happy girl who played beside nature, climbed the trees, sang and dance, cuddled with puppies, held hands, and skipped and skipped long after sundown across paths of gold, rainbows, unicorns, and her forever friends, has returned to me. And I am embracing her fully, and never letting her go.
I don’t know how to fake being happy. I am an open book. Even if someone taught me how to fake happiness, I couldn’t do it.
My eyes can’t lie, and neither can my soul. This inability to fake my emotions can bring about challenges. Perhaps cause others discomfort. Even my love can be over zealous, and maybe a bit smothering, depending on interpretation. And, thusly, so can my sadness.
But my gift of truth in emotions is greatly beneficial. I see things in me quite clearly, and have an expansive self-awareness. I am able to make beneficial change for myself. I can also see emotions in others. Everyone is like a water pool to me—sometimes crystal clear, other times murky. I feel the waters. Some are cold, some warm, and others entirely refreshing.
I carry much feeling within—both others and mine. This can be an overwhelming experience. Sometimes my emotions cannot be separated from others. This is challenging when people I love are going through hard times. I often wake up feeling upset and not knowing why, until I find out a close friend is suffering. Today, several people I know are going through life challenges. I feel a pull of despair. Other days I feel pulls of elation.
Today I also am experiencing my own transition, as I went from the tropical climate of Maui, Hawaii to the cloudy, rainy skies of Washington. My body’s physical pain is retriggered by the climate. My mind, too, is affected by the darkness of outdoors. I have bid goodbye to great friends on the island of Maui, and the healing salty sea. I have a houseful of people adjusting to time change and some sickness, too.
Today, I reflect on ways to raise my energy, despite the events circling within me and about me. Today I reflect on my long time sun.
Long Time Sun
Sometimes I forget my long time sun.
I forget that I hold the key to my own joy, peace, and serenity.
I forget because I hold deep desires to be seen.
I forget that I am already connected and understood.
I forget because I long to be accepted.
I forget to love myself unconditionally.
I forget because I cling to external ideals, ideas, goals, and plans.
I forget to let go.
I forget because I fall into familiar patterns.
I forget I hold the light to freedom.
I forget because I want to be noticed, loved, and adored.
I forget I am enough.
I forget because of life’s unexpected twists and turns.
I forget life is an endless transitioning cycle.
I forget because I ache from others’ words and actions.
I forget to comfort my own heart.
I forget because I see truths I don’t wish to see.
I forget I can choose how to see my world.
I forget because I turn inward and focus on myself.
I forget I am not the only one hurting.
I forget because I think I am in the shadows of dark.
I forget that I am a long time sun.
The Prayer of St. Francis
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace
Where there is hatred, let me sow love
Where there is injury, pardon
Where there is doubt, faith
Where there is despair, hope
Where there is darkness, light
Where there is sadness, joy
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console
To be understood as to understand
To be loved as to love
For it is in giving that we receive
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life
As this is my last day in Maui, I am thinking upon the lyrics of Nickelback’s song: If Today Was Your Last Day. I am meditating on each and every word.
While taking my walk on the beach this morning, while photographing the abundance of nature, while packing, while driving, and while stepping on the plane, I will be holding these lyrics in my heart and mind.
I have, for many years, been living each moment like it was my last. However, I was living from a fear-based approach. Negativity swamped my mind. Today was my last day because I was slowly dying. Today was my last day because I might not live to see tomorrow. Today was my last day because I was afraid to live.
I walked Dead Man’s Beach. I thought of every worse case scenario. I remained careful and cautious. I didn’t reach out like my heart called me to reach out. I didn’t have fun because the fun inspired fear of loss. I didn’t risk, because risk meant danger.
I had been living like my last day entirely upside down and backwards. Fear consumed me. Everything measured by fear. Everything judged against worse case events. Everything absorbed into this shadowed light.
I don’t want to be on my death-bed with regrets of having not lived. I don’t want to live another day worried and harboring deep seeded anxiety. I want to live. And I shall.
I shall carry the healing waters of this tropical island back home with me to the state of Washington. I shall continue risking. I shall continue surfing the waves. I shall stand straight and paddle across the seas. I shall dive deep and swim with the beauty beneath. I shall speak my truth to those I hold so dearly in my heart. I shall speak my truth to myself.
I shall hold my own hand and walk forward, seeking adventure and joy instead of a prison of safety. I have lived so very, very long in captivity that the thought alone of running free is powerful.
Today is my last day in Maui but it is the first day I return home reborn into hope and the wonderful possibilities of life.
Nickelback
If Today Was Your Last Day
My best friend gave me the best advice
He said each day’s a gift and not a given right
Leave no stone unturned, leave your fears behind
And try to take the path less traveled by
That first step you take is the longest stride
If today was your last day
And tomorrow was too late
Could you say goodbye to yesterday?
Would you live each moment like your last?
Leave old pictures in the past
Donate every dime you have?
If today was your last day
Against the grain should be a way of life
What’s worth the prize is always worth the fight
Every second counts ’cause there’s no second try
So live like you’ll never live it twice
Don’t take the free ride in your own life
If today was your last day
And tomorrow was too late
Could you say goodbye to yesterday?
Would you live each moment like your last?
Leave old pictures in the past
Donate every dime you have?
Would you call old friends you never see?
Reminisce of memories
Would you forgive your enemies?
Would you find that one you’re dreamin’ of?
Swear up and down to God above
That you finally fall in love
If today was your last day
If today was your last day
Would you make your mark by mending a broken heart?
You know it’s never too late to shoot for the stars
Everyday Asperger's 