Fear

Duh?? But I thought...

I think it's hard when someone longs deeply to do something...because they are so afraid of it. But maybe, the fear involved, is the very reason they should not do it. I have figured out that this is the reason that I am not content being single. I've always held the idea of marriage in my mind as a refuge for all of the uncertainty of being single. Sorry for breaking the rule of "enjoying" being single...but it's true.

In the very back of my Bible I have a note that reads:

"The intensity of my desire to be married has been fueled by a profound fear that I'd never succeed at it."

Yes, this is quoted...actually written in the back of my Bible. No one else said it (on the radio, or anything). This is literally a major answer to prayer that I was prompted with one day, and I was convicted that I needed to write it down. It's dated February 10, 2008. Do I want to be motivated by a spirit of fear? Absolutely not. But I must be honest, and forgive me in advance if this becomes too intense. The more time that goes on, the more the fear that I will never get married seems to choke me. Then I feel doubly bad because apparently, I'm not handling this like an adult.

The truth is, I am a child of divorce who is scared out of her mind that I've been disqualified from being married at all because of things that she's already been through. On top of that, I tend to have a bad temper and a lot of difficulty making transitions. Gee, the groundwork for staying single permanently seems to be laid, doesn't it?

I hate those parts of me. My bad temper. My trouble making transitions. My pessimism, and my tendency to assume the worst. Awful. That's not how I see myself in my head, ya know? In my head, I want to overcome all my laziness and help anybody I can. I want to be self-controlled and have things be decent and in order. Temperate. Mellow. Somebody who knows God is in control, and she models that...rather than being moody and panicked. I've heard it all. I know it always comes when you're not looking for it. I know God is in control. I know he knows what he's doing. I know he knows exactly what I can handle. I know I can't rush it. I know singleness is a gift. I know there are a lot of lonely married people. I know marriage is not a fix-all. I know married people have problems too.

Okay, so now that it has been established that I'm such a "know it all"... (sorry) :) I'm going to be a know it all just a little bit longer, and then I'll stop.

I know I need to keep busy. I know I need to GET busy and serve people. I know I can't look for anybody to complete me. I know the divorce rate is alarmingly high, and I know I don't want to become another statistic. I also know that I romanticize way too much and this doesn't help. I know that I'm living in a culture that does not encourage marriage anymore because too many of them fail. I've been told countless times that I'm just better off not being married. It's easier, and anyway, it's not worth it to get married because it probably won't last. All of this just breaks my heart. The truth is, that I do have a terrible sense of incompleteness (even with God in my life) that I know marriage will not fix. I'm embarrassed to talk about that because I don't have the life experience to understand that marriage won't fix that. I know I don't want to find this out the hard way. But then I'm left suspended in mid air, between a rock and a hard place, having no clue what to do.

I end up beating myself up because I can't seem to learn that God is enough, and I need to trust Him. Why can't I understand this? Why don't I get it? I feel like I'm in a world where practically everything is something I'm not allowed to do, and I'm supposed to be happy about that because it's so much easier than trying to make a life with someone. Maybe so...but something is definitely wrong, and I need to know what it is. Maybe I really do think that I am less of a person because I'm not joined in marriage to someone. How could I ever admit this without feeling like the dumbest Christian who ever lived, because I should know better?

I hate the fact that I feel unqualified to handle God's most sacred covenant. This is heartbreaking to me! I don't like it at all. If I spend everyday feeling like I can't be who God made me to be...how am I supposed to be assured that I'm not less of a person? Apparently, this IS who God made me to be...single. But it's miserable. It's lonely. It's incomplete...I'm sorry, but it is! Yes, I know, there are a lot of lonely married people out there too right? So does that disqualify me from even saying anything about it? I'm just trying to figure out where the screw up came in. Something is wrong. I just wanna know what it is. Is that all that life is...just being thankful that things are (just) horrible and not MISERABLE too?

I know a lot of successfully married people. I want so badly to understand what makes them so...but none of them seem to want to encourage me that I could ever have the same thing. What is wrong with me? What do you guys know that I don't? (a lot, I'm sure!). If marriage is that miserable, why'd you guys do it then? Seriously...these are things I want to ask someone.

In the end, I just need to keep trusting God. This is true. I'm not stupid. I know marriage is hard and it will never complete me. NEVER will I run out & just marry anyone because I just don't wanna be single anymore. I have too much pride in the person God has made me to be. Am I scared to get married? Yes! Of course! I don't think I'd be human if I were not. All I can say is...I need to (at the right time) conquer this fear. A fear that I must get honest about, but I shouldn't even be operating out of...so, what do do with that?? Anyway, we're all damaged (not perfect, I mean). I think the deception comes when we (I) believe that I am more damaged than most. My goal now, is going to be to humble myself & not be so full of conceit.

A Drink of Water in the Desert

Duh?? But I thought...

Gonna make this one short and sweet because I'm tired...but I just wanted to get something down before I forgot about it. Tonight, I did a YouTube search on Autism and sexuality. Found a video from a young guy (I gather he was in England, but I'm not positive). Anyway, he used a certain sentence that just struck me, because it seemed to convey exactly how I feel...but I've never been able to word it exactly like he did.

He said: "You mourn the loss of something you've never had because you know you're never going to get it.".

Yep! Bingo!...Bulls eye! That's it! This explains why, deep down, part of me always feels like Charlie Brown when Lucy snatches the football, and he lands flat on his back...or like Bugs Bunny when he says:

"Something tells me I shoulda stood in bed!"

Leave it to me to make comparisons with cartoon characters...but it's true! My mother has told me before that she feels really bad because she didn't really teach me any coping skills; but, to my relief, I think that those with Autism have difficulties LEARNING coping skills to begin with! Now, I know what you're thinking:

"How do you know you'll never get it? What do you mean?"

Well, in my case, I mean, a husband and a regular job. Those who are autistic want so much just to be on par with "normal people" (or you might say neuro-typical people). I think we grieve because something inside us is petrified that we never REALLY will be. I also think this is part of the reason we have meltdowns. I further believe that this is the reason we put so much weight on normal, everyday, mundane experiences, and we LONG for those things (eg. Marriage, job, moving away, children (maybe)). I mean, what is it like to literally long for those things all the time and then be petrified because you don't even know if you have the coping skills to deal with any of them? I mean, I know I couldn't even fake it! There's not enough emulating I could do of anybody, to do that EVERYDAY...I don't think so.

So, do I resign myself to the fact that it's just EASIER and my life is more simplified if I don't even try?? Who needs that?? That's crazy...and I refuse to give into it! But it's like I said...there's a grieving that goes on... for what I've never had, because I know I'll never get it. Things have to be altered, they have to be changed... They have to be adapted...and for that matter, I DON'T know that I'll never get it. But sometimes the breath of hope is stale air, and I'm struggling to FEEL as important as I really AM to God. Letting patience have it's perfect work is one thing...I just wanna make sure I don't dry up...you know? Anybody else feel that way?

Lectured...

Duh?? But I thought...

My step dad used to lecture me incessantly. He made me nervous...what else can I say? Very rarely, would he ever speak to me. Instead, it was always AT me. I remember...his vehicle (whichever one he had at the time) would pull in the driveway, and everyone in the house had to quickly look like they were doing something...because if not, we were lectured on the ills of having done nothing all day. Usually, we were only relaxing because it was evening, and we were tired because we'd been busy all day...but that made no difference. I remember him making me look up the words "Independence" and "Systematic" in the dictionary because he'd decided that I wasn't good at either one one of these things...and it was time I learned what they were. I was only 11.

He was an artist. When he married my mother, our garage became his (sort of) studio. One afternoon while I was washing dishes (a MUST as a daily chore), I suddenly heard him out there cussing. I thought I heard him drop something, and I wondered if he hurt himself. When he came in the house, I made the mistake of asking him if anything was wrong. It was a mistake because he became really nasty with me. He demanded to know why I would assume anything was wrong...and didn't I know what I was doing when I ASSUME things? Apparently, I was making an ASS out of both him and myself (ME).

He stood in the kitchen and lectured me; warning me I needed to mind my own business. I stood there mortified, with a squished dish rag in one hand and a wet glass in the other as he went and got a pad of paper and...wrote the word ASSUME on it in all caps. I figured out that he was still showing me what I had done wrong...but. WHAT was that exactly? I had't even gotten to tell him that I just wanted to make sure he was okay. He wouldn't let me! He asked me if I knew what I had done...telling me to LOOK at the word on the paper. I stared at it hard; but had NO idea what he meant. (For goodness sakes, I was only a kid!)

Many a discussion with him suddenly and unexpectedly turned into a noisy torrent of words that just made me wish I could dissolve onto the floor into a puddle. Then I wouldn't have to hear anymore. His words hurt. Sometimes, I felt like he was literally hitting me on the head with a hammer. I wanted to scream: STOP!!! But then, I'd never hear the end of THAT. My only option was to stand there and allow him to "teach" me what I'd done wrong. I had done nothing wrong. So why did my "parent" (figure) suddenly seem so determined to "break" me? I remember one night, he came in the door from work, and mom and I were relaxing on the sofa. The armchair in the corner was piled with clean laundry...which he suddenly began throwing at us. Here it came...the lecture...and all the humiliation that came with it. Why were we so lazy and why hadn't we done anything all day. (??)

This is not about laundry, dishes, or looking up words in the dictionary. And that is exactly my point. These things are not important. So why did I need to build an imaginary wall around myself? I didn't want to; but so often, perpetual "bullets" would fly. Why did he get SO MAD...SO EASILY?? I drove myself crazy trying to answer this question. I decided (at some point) that I would not love him; I didn't want to be close to him...and I would NEVER be like him...EVER. I learned quickly to keep as close as possible to my mother, and do everything I could to rise above, what I deemed was, his own stupidity.

If he lectured me or called me any names, I'd pretend I was holding a giant mirror in between us. That way, he'd be staring in that mirror and treating HIMSELF like dirt kicked under somebody's shoe. He wasn't talking that way to ME!

I think there's a lot of truth in the way I sheltered myself. As badly as he treated me at times...he must've felt a hundred times worse about himself. In order to "dump" all that on someone else, a person has to have all that going on inside of them...yeah? The problem was that my "empathy" Became less and less. Oh, don 't misunderstand me: His treatment of me and refusal to ever acknowledge it was NOT my fault. The thing was...the less empathy I allowed myself to have for him...the angrier I became. The angrier I became, the more isolated I was...even though I poured myself into so many other things, like my friend's at school, my homework, and the support group I attended. I knew nothing at that time about AS or Autism...I just knew that I had a step dad who would get mad at me and ask me if I wanted to be dumb all my life. Looking back...I wonder if he was actually petrified because he thought that I believed HE was dumb. Poor guy. Yeah...I said that...poor guy.

People only wound someone else when they are wounded themselves. As an adult, now determined to move on with my life...I need to remember this. Back then, the one thing we had in common that smothered everything else, was our wounded spirits...mine because he was wounding it...and his because of years of experiences (most of which I will never know about) that I as a child, should never have been expected to grasp. I now know, that we really did have so much more in common with each other than that; but his need to hold me down, and my need to be left alone suffocated everything. I had not planed to write this...but I think I needed to because here it is...what can I say?

Anyway...he died a few years back. He'd had mounting health issues, and we'd been silently preparing (or knowing we needed to) for a long time. I'd spent the first night in the first place I had all to myself. I was still in bed that morning, boxes stacked everywhere, when my phone rang. I didn't answer it. I was exhausted and I let it ring. About an hour later, it rang again, and I was up then. It was my mother, telling me that he had passed away the night before. I was numb...but it was a displaced, well-we-knew-this-was-coming kind of numb. I hadn't allowed myself to "feel" towards him for so long, that it was hard now. I was sad, of course, but I immediately went down the road of well-at-least-he's-not-suffering-anymore. I know now, that I was only continuing to do what I'd always done: I held myself together because I'd learned for so long that around him...it was not safe to fall apart. At his funeral, the dam broke (as it were), and I cried like a baby...sobbed on my mother's shoulder. I don't think anybody expected this... certainly not me! It's not that I was DETERMINED to keep it out...I just didn't even realize that I felt that bad...that I was hurting that much...that I missed him...that I loved him.

The feelings that I had wanted to express to the man that I came to know as a parent when he was alive...had to wait until he had died to show themselves. I guess in his world, vulnerability was not accepted...so try as he might...he couldn't take it from anyone else. This is my theory, anyway. I know now, that I had convinced myself for so long that I had never needed him...that I would not let myself know that really did need him.

I needed him. I loved him.

I'm still not used to saying this at all...because I'm still waiting for the "lecture.". Now...I'm scared to death of someday marrying somebody just like him. But this is a tragic statement... One that I do not want to become my mantra! This is why...as long as I've been single...the idea of marriage has never left my mind. But determining who I will never be like is pitiful grounds on which to build God's most sacred institution. So I'm now attempting to do what I could not... and then WOULD not allow myself to do. I know I need to let myself love the man that I was so determined I hated...only to protect myself. Hard as this might be...I really believe I need to open these "floodgates"...either that, or stay bound to trying to keep them locked up. Who needs that?!! I don't want my heart to stay a place where vulnerability isn't allowed to flow freely. I need to do this for ME...not anyone else; and for so long, this had never occurred to me.

So now, I want to take memories...experiences...things from back somewhere in my mind that don't involve a feeling of "drop.". I want to invite these things in, and start allowing myself to embrace all the things good, about a man that I learned to look at as a threat. Children should never have to learn to defend themselves from those who are supposed to make them feel cared for and safe; nor should adults, for that matter. But so often, this is what happens, and as a result, so many believe that marriage isn't even worth it anymore. How sad is that? No, marriage is not a requirement to be a great person...I just Want to make sure that I don't forfeit my future because I can't face my past.

PS...I know I have not said his name once here. It was Daniel.