Hello !

Some days it's hard to avoid the 'why me's .

I don't wonder why my kids are healthy, or why I have a roof over my head, or even why I (still) have internet access.  Or why dessert can't be healthy and salad fattening.

But I do wonder....why things have to be the way they are with me.  Why am I not one of those lucky women?  One of those women who have hundreds (or dozens?  a couple?) of friends, whose husbands can't take their eyes off of them, who have careers where they can wear cool clothes and hold up their heads when they talk about what they do, who have nice homes they don't worry about inviting people to visit, where they can replace furniture and repair things when they get worn.

I don't wonder why I'm not twenty years old--I guess it's all about expectations.  I expect that everybody ages, so I don't wonder why it's happened to me.

I do realize that a lot of this is fantasy.  Just because somebody looks like they have it all together doesn't mean that they actually do.  And there are others who have horrible problems that I fail to notice when I'm in a mood like this--women in nursing homes, women with horrible health problems (not that mine aren't horrible, if only for a few months out of the year), women living in poverty that I could barely imagine, women living in countries where their husbands own them.

It's probably partly because I live in this wealthy country that my expectations are so high.  Most of the women around me seem to have decent lives.  Maybe it's even partly because the intelligent half of my brain has figured out that if the other half would pull its mental weight, and if I were healthy year-round, I would 'merit' a pretty good life.  As if everybody on this planet gets everything they deserve, good or bad.

I have rebelled lately ('lately' in terms of months) against the idea that I am less than those other women because I don't have those things.

I got up very early this morning because my husband has Guard duty this weekend.  Got dressed (to shoes, as Flylady would say (although I can't afford to wear one of my two pairs of shoes around the house all day)--but my hair is fixed and everything), started that wood stove, did my morning chores.  No school today--we always take that monthly weekend off when my husband's gone.  But most days (when I'm well) I get up reasonable early, get dressed, do chores, homeschool, do more chores, oversee the girls doing chores, play the piano, get online, exercise, pick up after everybody, do even more chores....and none of it matters.  I am invisible.

I've always been invisible.  I was invisible in school.  Intentionally, a lot of the time.  If I didn't try to connect with anyone, maybe I wouldn't get bullied today.  And I learned very early not to be myself.  Not to let people find out how intelligent I was, because then they'd expect even more from me, and I couldn't deliver.  As I went out into the world of employment and marriage and church, I tried to appear normal.  I also tried to be agreeable, and honest, and kind, and all those things I was raised to be.  And I tried to make friends, but I don't know how to do it.  The same way many people wouldn't have any idea how to play a Chopin mazurka, while that came to me quite naturally.  About people, I had no clue.  And no clue that the cluelessness was called autism.  I thought eventually I would figure it out, and start making friends, or stumble into the right group of people, where I would fit in, or at least be tolerated.  I kept thinking those things every time I found myself in a new group--that this time it would work.

Being unable to recognize people, or hear when it's noisy, or find anyplace unfamiliar (or occasionally even familiar), is bad enough, when added to the cluelessness.  But the final nail in the coffin has been my unemployment.  That is unforgivable.

I hid being sick along with everything else that was 'wrong' with me.  I hid it so well sometimes *I* forgot I was sick.  Sometimes I'm so sick there's no hiding it from anybody.  But I can't hide not having a job (I've actually wondered if I'd be better off if I made one up.).  And nothing else matters.  Making sure I don't sleep too much, cleaning the house, playing the piano, trying to be a good parent....none of it matters.  What I do is invisible.  It's as if I do nothing all day long.  I am a middle-aged woman whose parents and sister pay more than half her bills, with a husband who has to try to support the family all by himself.

Sometimes I wonder why I get up in the morning.  I always do, and I don't have any plans to stop--I just don't understand why I'm doing it.

I've watched people who are abusive, or just not very nice at all, make friends.  People who are somewhat clueless, if not as clueless as I am, make friends.  People who have major substance abuse problems, people who make horrible financial decisions, people who aren't very bright at all, people with odd religious beliefs, people who molest children--they all seem to be able to meet at least a few people and form relationships, even if they have to hide parts of themselves to do it.

I am invisible.  When I disappeared from my old facebook page recently, nobody noticed.  This didn't surprise me.  It would have several years ago, but I'm used to it now.

It's a joke that I tidy up the house before Christmas--nobody is going to visit.

In spite of all my whining, I don't need people in the same way that other people need people.  A particularly sociable person might need to be around people 90% of the time.  Maybe an average person might want 70-80%.  That would just stress me out.  Maybe partly because I'd spend that 70-80% of the time trying so hard not to let my differences show, and that's exhausting.  Maybe that's just me being my natural autistic self.  Maybe I only need 10-20%.  What is ten percent, 1.6 hours a day?  10 hours a week?  It's not much, but I probably don't need (or even want) more than 10-20 hours a week.  I suppose commune life would not be for me.

A lot of the time I'm perfectly happy on my laptop, or playing my piano, or reading a book, all by myself.  People would just be a distraction.  As it is, with four homeschooled children I hardly get enough quiet time.  I can't complain--I chose this, and I choose it every year (maybe sometimes every day) when I don't send them to public school.

But I need that 10%, and having children isn't enough to meet that need.  I think we're all biologically programmed to need this.  And I am not going to get it.  I have been tried, convicted, and sentenced repeatedly, everywhere I've gone.

It's hard to watch other people sometimes, people who aren't perfect but are liked anyway, living their golden lives out in the world.  When I was twenty I used to look out my bedroom window and see the 'normal' people walking by.  I know their lives aren't trouble-free.  I know this.  I read the news.  I've known several people.  And in some ways I think I'm a basically happier person than many people are.  It's a Dickensian thing--'how can you be miserable--you're rich enough'.

I really didn't think, growing up, that I'd be poor all my life, either.  It's those pesky expectations again--my parents weren't poor, so it never occurred to me that poverty would be my fate.

It's not the money I really need.  Well, not until I lose my house, anyway.  Money would help.  Decent clothes would help.  You can't tell me people wouldn't look at me differently if I had more money.  But that's what I really need--for people to look at me differently.  Being alone is preferable to being looked at as if I were retarded, or incredibly lazy.  And being alone at home is better than being alone in a room full of people, not recognizing people, not getting approached by anybody, not being able to hear a lot of what is being said.  There really isn't any point to my going to a crowded, noisy place.

Self-pity is like a drug.  I try to stay away from it.  But being isolated is like being too cold, or too hungry--you try not to focus on it, because you can't do anything about it, but it's always there.

Some days I'm quite philosophical about it--what is the meaning of life, anyway?  Winning a popularity contest?  Why are we here?  We're all here for such a short time.  Is what's happening to me really even important?  Am I invisible to God, too?  Are we all?  Is God wondering the same thing in reverse--is he (she? it?) invisible to us?



I'm on a couple of message boards on facebook, and one thing I can't stand is when somebody posts and nobody answers.  I tend to mostly lurk, unless I really have something to say, or a question, but if nobody else answers somebody, I eventually will.  If somebody gets sick and then stops posting, and I notice, after a while I'll ask if they're okay.  We should all be doing this.  It's so easy to be self-centered (it comes quite naturally to me).

The world would be just a little bit better if more of us would reach out to that person nobody talks to.  We might be the only person who has spoken to that person for days or even weeks.  It might only take a few minutes to welcome somebody to the human race.  Even just a hello.