I want to vent a bit. I had a good conversation today. Started the process of maybe making a friend. And I hate that by tomorrow it will be gone. The issue stems from autism - specifically my own lack of "autobiographical episodic memory." Episodic memory is memory of stuff that happens to me. In simple terms, it means I forget almost everything that happens to me... as well as almost everything I learn about other people... within a day or two of it happening... and, perhaps worse, I forget any emotion or feeling that was associated with any of those events.
So the conversation I had today dies today. Even if I were to write it down word for word, the emotions would be dead by tomorrow. It would be like reading someone else's journal.
And I hate it.
I mean it's great to forget things sometimes. To be able to help someone process horrific events in their life and then not be scarred from it. To be able to survive abuse. To be able to wake up smiling when the night before I felt like all hope was gone.
But I hate it, because I know it's going to hurt me. I'm going to try to build a simple friendship and most likely it's all going to come crashing down since there will never be a solid foundation.
I had a thought not long ago that I have never made a friend. I'm so terrified of people and hurting them and getting hurt that I don't even try to really make friends. It's always someone else making friends with me. Which makes me wonder if I even can.
Maybe?
I hate that I can't remember people from my past. Maybe I have made friends. Maybe they were good friends. Maybe they've even been close to me. Except that I have no memories at all. I probably hurt all of them or made them run away. Or forgot they existed and neglected the friendship until it died.
I tried to capture some of the feelings. So here's a poem-ish thing.
FYI this is NOT a build me up moment. I know that God makes everything right in eternity, that He is there for me personally, and that the people who are willing to be there with me in spite of the mess that is me are the people meant for me... but the poem doesn't address that. It's sorta depressing and sad. If you want something uplifting or if you need perspective or hope or peace you're gonna have to read a different post.
From the day I woke to living
Til each night I go to sleep
I find myself surrounded
By the dark and angry deep
And then I'm alone with sand
Castles I can build
With walls and turrets rising
Some of them are beautiful
Sublime
Others built too close to shore
Are touched by waves and there no more
Just moments after laying
The foundation
And then
A person stands there next to me
We build a castle by the sea
He says that's sweet
Let's build it higher yet
But each night
My island sinks beneath the tide
Castles don't build higher
Tomorrow comes
And then I'm alone with sand
The person that was next to me
He builds his castles inland
From "stone" and "steel"
And love and hopes and dreams
And next door
There's a castle built by someone else
There's a city
There's a world
Of everyone but me
Who builds castles
While I build sand castles by the sea
The castles that they build
All grow and rise and fall
Each changing as the days or years go on
The simplest ones are stone or mud
Made only days before
The grandest are of gold
Forty fifty years made tall
And everyone is building
Friendships as they talk and laugh
Lovers as they smile
Strangers as they pass upon the street
Castles made of hopes and dreams
Are built in every moment
With every single person that they meet
There's only sand upon my island
No mud or gold or steel
Which makes me think that maybe
None of those are real
Well maybe they are real for all of them
But not for me
I've learned that castles built inland
Can last for ages
That even huts of mud or sticks
Can last for weeks or years
Really?
No matter how I pile up sand
It falls
Even if I fall asleep
Inside a massive sheltered keep
With walls built tall by many hands
When morning breaks it's gone
And then I'm alone with sand
The people come and go with time
Some build a day or three
But no one ever sees the castles
Drown beneath sea
They think they're built
Of stone or mud or steel
But mud and stone and steel
Don't disappear
Which means it's me
Perhaps we build a castle
You of wood and I of sand
And days go by and then we meet again
I have no answers to your stories
No insight to your mind
No feelings for your hopes or fears or dreams
No castle made of memory
No proof we ever met
Nothing left but sand beside the sea
So who would spend their days
Building castles that can't be
Except for me?
It's hard to hope that someone
Would choose to live on sand
When others offer mud or stone or steel
It's hard to watch as people build just once
Then walk away
Because sand castles aren't things
They understand
It's hard to watch my castles wash away
Sometimes I end up crying
As the tide comes in
And then I'm alone with sand
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