Tuesday was my birthday

I was born 58 years ago at 7:25 am. The third girl, the 5th child of my parents. My mother was 32 - so was my dad.

25 random things about Lady Door

by Lady Door on Thursday, January 29, 2009 at 9:57pm 

1. I broke into a car and stole a CB radio when I was in high school. 
2. Received a brown belt in Judo when I was 16. 
3. I used to cry myself to sleep at night as a child because I wished I was a boy. 
4. I always believed that my Grandmother loved me the most of her 32 grandchildren. 
5. I have been sewing since I was 4 years old. That is when my mom got sick of sewing Eeyore's tail back on and taught me to do it myself. 
6. I believed in Santa Claus until I was in 7th grade. 
7. At summer camp, I told the other kids that I led a double life. I was actually Claudia Kidd, daughter of Billy Kidd - a world class alpine ski racer. The story went: my parents had to travel to Australia to train during the summer months, so they made me stay with the Lowe family. The Lowe family was nervous about my safety, so they called me Susan. Several kids believed me. I had my sister autograph pictures of Billy Kidd torn from magazines to send to them as proof. 
8. I studied different types of schizophrenia for several years during junior and senior high school. I slowly started mimicking the symptoms. I felt successful when I was finally diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic - then I dropped the act. 
9. I can whistle really great! I have perfect pitch. I unfortunately cannot sing because one of my vocal chords is paralyzed. 
10. I have two belly buttons! 
11. I feel grievous guilt over not being a better mother. I wish I would have been less self-absorbed while they were growing up. All of my children are wonderful adults in spite of my fumbling efforts.
12. I call anything that is cute a "kitten". 
13. My childhood nickname was Glunk. It was not meant to be an endearing name. I followed my sister around - so she called me "stick-to-it-glue" later she morphed it into Glunk. I grew to like the name. 
14. I am totally in love with my husband. I love him more ever day. He is my best friend. I find him exquisite and I adore him. 
15. I suffer from oppressive anxiety. I sometimes panic. I cry very easily and it doesn't embarrass me at all. 
16. I can fall asleep almost anywhere. I often sleep while in the dentist chair having my teeth worked on. 
17. If I could live anywhere, I would live in the middle of the woods. I would have lots of cats. 
18. I am afraid of the sun. I worked third shift for 3 years. I wish that school was third shift - I would be more awake - I bet my students would like it better too. Who in their right mind would want to be awake in the middle of the day? 
19. When my family dog died, my father was too old to dig her grave. He asked me to dig for him. He cut a rectangle of grass out in the back yard where to dig. He said to dig it straight down about 5 feet deep. I dug STRAIGHT down - the grave was almost perfectly squared and level - with sharp corners. When I was at the bottom, my dad came out and looked down at me. He was puzzled about why I had created such perfect edges. He didn't recognize my actions as an honor to him. I loved him so much. I really miss him. 
20. People sometimes think I am "brave" because I fought/survived cancer. That is nonsense. People deal with the cards they have been dealt. 
21. I have dermatographia. 
22. I am afraid of flying. I don't want to go to Europe because of the airplane ride to get there - besides - the people don't speak English - that would just make me feel anxious. The whole idea of flying and non-English makes me nervous just thinking about it. 
23.  hhmmm, damn 25 things is hard to think of. Oh - my hair! I don't care about hair at all. When my hair was really long the first time (before I met Tony) I only brushed it once every two weeks - whether it needed it or not. I have shaved my head more times that I can remember. When I lost my hair during my cancer treatments my mother kept encouraging me to wear a wig - ah - yah - right... Later after my hair had grow back to a chin length or so - she took me to get my hair cut at her hair cut place. The stylist made me look like just like her. After she dropped me off at home, I took a razor and shaved my head smooth - to the scalp. She wasn't very pleased the next time she saw me. 
24. I have a secret blog. 
25. I wrote secrets inside of my granddaughter's quilt. 

  Ant: OMG mom, you're awesome. In regards to; 

 #1 - I had no idea! #7 - Does that mean I'm related to an Olymic medal winner? sweet. 

#8 - You should have told me I was BPD way before you did :p 

#16 - You're hilarious! 

 Jam: MOM!!!! OMG!!! They're great! you're funny and quick witted and simply adorable! Don't be anxious this is the best list I've read thus far!!! 

 Jam: Can I add my favorite random fact about you??? Your immediate reaction to anything and everything is either intense dislike or disbelief.... the most memorable: "PROVE IT!!!!" and "No, Aja, you have blond hair!" 

 Lady Door: Ant - the secrets are inside the lining - if you ever re-back the quilt you will see. But I better have died first. O.o

Shame no more.

Undated (but definitely 1979)
To me, I am my world, I am the only thing in this world
I am the only thing
the world around me doesn't matter because I am me
and if I'm bad, or fail at life
the only one to know is me
I am not part of this world
I am not part of this life
I am not part of this world, I am not who I am
I am not a part of this world
I am not who I am, I am not who I am
I am not a part of me
I am not who I think I am
You will not deceive me, and you who will die
You will deceive me, and now you must die.

August 13, 1978
The waves flicker with sunlight in play
and they have long since they were born
and they will always be the same
never changing, never wanting, never wishing.
They will shine. The sun will play upon their happy caps,
and slightly brighten their unending depths.
And no, they will never change
never deceive you, the are never to blame.
And those of us who watch them play
upon a bed of unknown land in the mists of everlasting rest,
with only the wind to blow their playing peaks
to shine for us, those who will never be...like waves.

November 1, 1979
I was once as dead as all dead could be
I laughed my laugh and dreamed my dreams.
I could cry and smile and stare from my eyes
and speak of things that meant nothing,
to no one,
but me.
The only thing to me was to be
my only joy was sorrow
I weep my laugh
and sobbed my fears
and screamed my sleep in angered mirrors.
Mirrors of life, my eyes, they were
No one could touch them to reach me, to hold.
To capture my glance a thought you must hold:
my glassy eyes were meanings, surrounded by verbs.
Words trickled past my lips
quivered while they spoke.
Thoughts so mixed up in my mind
faster than my tongue could move,
then abandoned thoughts were left far behind
as my mind raced new ones for me to find.
My mind explodes with thoughts still now
racing forward, faster with time.
Too bad my lips move no more,
for my eyes know the darkness
that no one else knows.

November 12, 1979
Black satin midnight
floating on a dream
yellow hazy moonlight
in moonlit lightening beams
dance upon the willow trees
hazy, still, unseen
Lazy stars in darkest sky
dancing very slow
wishing me a happy life
as I'm growing old
fairies from the fairy tales
sing upon the lazy night
castles forbidding me and you to enter in the light
Cobwebs look like snow to me
and trees are waving slowly
fly away the moonlit sky
and night is wearing down
slow and quiet is the night
when I was born to die.

===========================================

Embarrassment. Yep. Embarrassment keeps me from posting. Many dramatic "poems" declaring my teenage feelings. 

Why can I throw this up now? I made a decision. I have been wall-to-wall Twilight Saga for the month of December. I do not see it ending anytime soon. I have been reading furiously - not just Meyers but Gaiman too. I think of my postings and how they make me cry sometimes while I write them. 

Pride makes me say out loud that these posts are better than Meyers writing - even on a bad day. These poems are like Meyers. They were written as a child. Yes, I know that I have not sold a franchise worth of material. Heck - Google Ads kicked me off before I received my first deposit. But still. My posts are not a book. I should not compare them to works of fiction. It is difficult for me to not judge. I am judge. that is what I do. It is natural and easy for me to believe that I am superior. 

I do not make New Year's resolutions. Perhaps I should rethink. Perhaps I should continue to write - especially the journals that come out of my box and go quickly back in. What am I waiting for? What can I possible be afraid of at this point? 

/cheers to 2012

I know fear. It creeps up on you unexpectedly.

January 27, 1978

I’m afraid to walk downstairs.
I’m afraid of the dark and the cold.
I’m afraid of being alone and I’m afraid of other people.
I don’t want to sit where I am.
I’m afraid people will laugh.
I hurt myself often.
I hate to wake in the morning.
I hate facing the day.
I feel as though I’ll burst into tears or scream…
I hate when I walk in the street.
I’m afraid I will trip on my feet.
I’m afraid to turn pages of books, or erase the mistakes I made.
I’m afraid that I will live and I’m afraid that I will die, not that it matters.
I tell you as I write, but who really cares?
I won’t play the piano or arrange my books or put my puzzles together, because I am afraid.
What am I really afraid of?

Last night has been like other nights, a very typical one. I laid in bed reading. Suddenly, I was afraid of turning the page. I had to stop touching the book. I was so afraid, I put my blankets in my mouth and pushed the book away and I started to cry. Why? I was so afraid. I moved the book, not touching it of course, from under the covers and pushed it on the floor. I was crying and gasping. I wanted to scream. Why? Then I was aware of my blankets, just like how the side of the page and the notebook. I don’t really want to touch them. It was very scary. I looked on my lamp, it was on and I knew that if I turned it off it would be dark like the night when I saw girls screaming and being killed and the other night when the squareness of my room was unbearable. I cried those nights too. Looking at the light reminded me of the night when I was afraid of Susie (my dog) and I cried myself to sleep. I reached out my hand slowly first but then quickly and turned off the light. I screeched a silent scream and lay flat on my back with my eyes open. The darkness flooded my eyes. I closed them and cried myself to sleep.

April 22, 1978

My mother told me to grow up. My friends told me to act my age. But I can’t, I can’t change like that.

I live in my own world. It is strange. I live a life like everyone else almost. Sometimes I feel happy, sometimes I feel sad or angry, but mostly I feel fear.

I know fear. It creeps up on you unexpectedly. Such as walking down a street, even in the day, I see a car parked a block ahead of me. Someone is in it. I don’t feel afraid that he will open the door and come after me. I feel that when I pass him, he will open the door quickly and knock me down. That is strange, isn’t it?

My emotions change quickly for no reason at all. If someone asks why I am feeling a certain way, I make up some reason. It doesn’t matter what, just so they will leave me alone. But if someone truly wants to know, I tell them that I don’t know why I was acting like that. That is true.

I walk to school every morning. I walk alone. When I walk alone, I am afraid. I walk like something is wrong with my hips. I can’t walk nicely ever. I have no grace at all. I don’t know why. I am alone most of the time.

I like sometimes to be alone but other times I shake for no reason and usually end up in my room in the corner on my bed shaking and crying.

When I talk to teachers or adults in school, no matter what I am talking about, tears come to my eyes and I almost start to cry.

What is wrong? It bothers me.

May 12, 1978

Around me doesn't matter.
My feet are feet.
My hands are all fingers.
My body is here but my mind is free.
I am in my mind now, all by myself, but I am happy.
My head moves far if I turn it a little.
I wish my hands would swing with grace and I could move with every perfection.
But, I am perfect.
It is perfect this way.
My eyes are peering, opening wide and seem to look through a focusing glass.
They focus in different places, but it takes a while.
I am in me, in the back of my head.
When I move, I want to move gently and slowly so as to perfect each movement.
I want is to be outside and watching a bird.
That is what I want: to watch a bird sailing around on its wings.
Everything has details.
I notice things and I watch.
It hurts to watch sometimes, but it is good, and I am good.
I feel good about something, but I don't think that something is about myself.

===================================

These pages were written when I was 15 years old. I was a Sophomore in high school. 

I just gotta let this one go. I cannot think of how to write about the angst of being a teenager when I am bogged down with panic to prepare for the new school year. I wish I could write about it though. I had a strange experience growing up. 

This post *screams* Asperger's. It reveals how I feel to this day - although I am not so frightened anymore. I do cry easily. I see and observe the environment around me - to a greater extent than NTs. I see and decode. I think I am more aware of things outside of myself than is apparent by my lack of social graces. If I am watching events unfold around me, I see the interactions of others - I understand.


So here stands an un-examined post...forgive me.

The Dining Room Depression

Takes place in 2075

Henry Johnson was usually a polite, young boy. There is only one time I can remember where he lost his behavior, when his family had its "Dining room Depression."

It all started back in the years 1974 and 75, which was about 100 years ago. It was the time when they had moving vehicles called "cars". They were run by gas, which is a form of oil in which we ran out of about 50 years ago. Well anyway, one day Henry's father came home and was very angry because he had just lost his job, he screamed out to Henry's mother that she better cut down on the use of food so they don't run out.

But alas, Henry's mother had cooked up a $50.00 meal and thought that since she had $20.00 left that she would ask her husband if he could give her some more.

She asked Henry's father if he was given any money when he was fired but in those days the factory that he was working at couldn't afford to do that so they had $20.00 to survive on until he got a new job.

In those times it was almost impossible to get a job so Mr. Johnson tried and tried to find a job. His family was now living on $5.00.

At the end of the 4th month, the family was nearly starving. A dinner or meal may consist of 1 piece of bread. Henry's mother has gotten Henry to go to friend's houses after school and steal food.

Near the end of the 5th month, Henry was crashing parties and shoplifting with his mother. Henry's father had recently died of starvation because they didn't go to any public health building because they were ashamed.

In the middle of the 5th month, Henry and his mother walked to the country. There they were lavishing apples and raw corn to live.

In the middle of June, the 7th month of the Dining room Depression, Henry's mother died of malnutrition.

Henry, soon after the 10th month, turned himself into the public health office. And that ended the dining room depression.

The end

================================

This must have been written earlier. This story is in cursive writing, and the story being placed in the 1974-75, makes me believe that I wrote this at that time. I was twelve years old, during that school year. Must have been between 7th and 8th grade.

This story is filled with the oil crisis of the 1970s. The metro bus companies cut service. People talked a lot about oil conservation. There was a lot of shouting done by me from atop the rock in the front yard. "Get a horse!" - as opposed to driving a car - shouted to passing cars. My parents nagged us to turn off the lights when we left rooms. That still makes sense!

In elementary school, I never wondered about other people's families. I was too busy bragging about my own. This story shows some understanding about blue class workers. In 1976, South St. Paul boasted that it was the largest stockyards in the world, it closed in 2008. When the wind was blowing up the bluffs, my walk to school was filled with dread, and what I imagined was going on down there next to the river. Yuck!

My best friend in junior high school lived just up the bluff overlooking the river. I liked to bike down to her house. Her brother was super cute - and her house was larger than mine - larger - because it had three stories plus a basement! The bathroom in her house was massive - it was larger than my own bedroom. It had ceramic tile floor - the little white hexagons that were popular in the early 1900s. My own house in Minneapolis had the same floor, it reminded me of BF Colleen.

The bathroom had a claw foot bathtub. I had only seen such a thing in books. I was amazed. Any way, back to why I was talking about Colleen in the first place. Her dad worked at the stockyards. She said her dad killed the cattle all day long. Shudder. I could not imagine such a life. It was so foreign to my existence. She was so wonderful. I loved her. I did something to lose her as a friend in the following years. She wouldn't look me in the eye. I still wonder what I did.

My family attended church in Minneapolis at St. Stephen's during this period. I remember having my first sip of coffee after service, sneaking in line for communion, and the family of naked hippie children that played in the yard across the street. It was shocking.

These must be the things that play into the ideas behind the tragic Dining Room Depression story above. Very sad. Poor Henry Johnson, if only his mother hadn't made such a lavish meal the day her husband lost his job...

Don't make me waste my life. You know I believe in something.

August 1976 

Sometimes, I wish I had a gun. I would kill myself if I did.
Sometimes, I am really happy and I am glad that I didn't have a gun.
Sometimes, I wish I was being held by a man.
Sometimes, I am glad I am alone.

....................................................

I am alone.
No one is ever with me, though people are near me, I am still alone.
I am alone because no one knows how I feel.
No one will ever know how I feel.
No one is like me.
No one can be almost like me either.


....................................................

 August 23, 1976

Betsy is always going into my room and it makes me sick. She is always invading my privacy. She listens on the phone when I talk to my friends. It makes me sick. She doesn't live her own life. She always has to know about everything I do, or say.

I was talking on the phone with some boys and one of them said a bird threw up when it saw me.

Am I really that ugly? I don't think so.

....................................................

 August 24, 1976

I got my overalls today! They are so cute. They are just like Bob's. I think. I don't know if I want to ask Doug to the fair. I want to. Maybe I will ask him to help work at my mom and dad's booth with me. He is nice and I want to get to know him. I'm not going to rush into anything this year. I think I will wear my overalls and a pink blouse the first day of school.

....................................................

August 1976

I need you more
I need you now
I love you, baby.

Give me that smile
The one you first gave me
Give me that look
the one that I miss
Give me that vow, the one that you said you'd give me.
Let us be friends
For the rest of our lives.

I know now you menat nothing that you did.
It was all a fantasy, one that came from me.
I'll never be the same again until you say it's so.
That you'll never say another word again to me for that will be.

To Elton John-
I will never leave my thoughts alone until I see you there walking out the stage towards me. I don't care if you're old. Just give me the chance, the one I've always wanted. Give me the smile the one that I need.

....................................................

September 1976

Don't let me give up my life. You know I don't believe in nothing.
For if it is wrong, tell me before it's too late.
Don't let me give up my mind to something that'll hurt me for you know I believe in Love.
If you only will tell me why you want what it will do to me. I don't know how it's said, just take my hand and pull me back.
'cause, Darling, don't let me waste my life on stupid dreams, and live my life for senseless things.
Oh, Darling, don't make me give up my life for something wrong, that won't work out.
Tell me at once and I will go and seek my dreams.
Darling, don't make me waste my life. You know I believe in something.

=======================

Okay, I am not sure what it was that I was going on about. I think that the last two entries are songs - at least they seem to have repetition and "rhyming" (kind of...)

I had crushes on almost every boy that glanced at me - and that included Elton John. I had posters all over my room and would dream about him. I believed I would marry him one day. 

Over my own discomfort over how I tear into my sisters during this period of time, I decided to call them something else. I love my sisters. They are all totally unique individuals. I have wonderful relationships with each of them. I cannot imagine losing them. I thought very little of them growing up. The love I feel for each of them now is the polar opposite of how I express myself in my early teen years.

I understand that this journal is a slow starter - but this has some similar themes - similar to my earliest writings in my one-year-five-year diary. The boy crushes - expressing love and switching quickly from crush to crush. These journals add hormones and sexual awakenings and the will to act on my urges. 

Another theme that I see here is the self-reflection - knowing somehow that I am alone - and using the journals to process. I see depression, and suicidal ideation. I see confusion over the actions and reactions of others. I misinterpret many social interactions in junior high and high school. 

I was a very awkward person. I still am, but I care so much less now. What a relief to not care.

It is hard to grow up knowing that you are different, but not being able to understand just how

August 22, 1976

Sometimes I don't understand anything at all. I learned today that I hold in my angry feelings so that is why I hardly ever get mad.

When I get mad I usually will go to my room and think over what has just happened. If I hear about things people have said about me I don't get mad, but I get mad if they say something about my friends.

When I get mad I will come up to my room and tell you everything. I think it will help me. I don't feel guilty any more about Bob since I have told people about it. I have nothing I can think of to feel guilty about. I don't feel guilty about Roy anymore. It helped me to write those letters just to say how I feel. I wrote them to get it off my mind not for other people to read. I really do trust my sisters to not read this because I might be mad at them sometime and write what I think because I can't write anything nice if I am mad.

I was mad at my dad today. He has been getting on my nerves lately. I only like him as a person not a parent. I really think he is an unreasonable guy when it comes to parenthood. God-damn, I hope I won't be a single fucking bit like him.

I want to have a baby but I wouldn't know what to say to her. Bob was going to fuck me. He almost did and he would have if Dawn didn't interrupt. God, was I mad at her! I felt like saying to Bob, "If you really want to be a father you sure as hell can screw me, but you better call up my Bitch and tell her first." He would have. He would have said, "Hey Bitch Lowe, I'm a gonna screw your daughter better than hell, so long Bitch!"

No, but I really like my mom. Sometimes she is a real bitch, but mostly she's alright.


A note about the formatting: I am going to cross out the text that I have crossed out in my journal - I find it interesting what I chose to scribble out or exclude.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Jumping straight into the yellow legal pads that I used as a teenager. These are painful, awkward journals filled with boasting and profanity. Some of the entries are calculated entries to lay the foundation for my schizophrenic diagnosis. I started leaving journal cookie crumbs in 1976, writing letters from "partner". After a year or two, I developed the alter ego as a homeless young mother. 

These early journals include a lot of wishing to have a baby. I yearned to have a baby years before I was sexually active. My bravado in the entry above about "Bob" and our almost/not quite sexual encounter was just that - fantasy. I was not sexually active until the next summer - so this journal will have lots of discussion of sex and my naive ideas about what sex was. 

I begin using drugs during this year, so I will certainly act more and more "streetwise" - pretending to myself as I record the thoughts and observations of the days as they pass. 

Paging through this journal before writing this summary, I want to apologize in advance to my siblings. I love you all. I say mean and cruel things about you and our wonderful, loving parents. Please keep in mind that I was only 13at this time. I have just finished eight grade, about to become a Freshman - the upperclassmen in junior high school. I am learning about relationships. I have not yet figured out that just because a boy talks to you doesn't mean that they "like" you. Just because a boy wants to get you alone to kiss you and feel you up, doesn't mean that he likes you either. 

There is so much confusion. I am developing as an observer of my life. I am finding my voice. This is Susan, out of control teenager, trying so hard to grow up and be liked and accepted by my peers. 

It is awkward and painful to watch. Don't avert your eyes. These pages are filled with cringe moments. I hope you find forgiveness for the confused young woman I was becoming. It is hard to grow up. It is harder growing up knowing that you are different, but not being able to place just how. I want to notice how I discuss and analyze my feelings especially. Feelings are still confusing to me. Especially since I discovered two years ago that I never realized that I had such a limited emotional vocabulary.

Just like 14 year old Susan, I yearn for you to accept me for who I am in these pages. It took me a until I was 30 years old, and near death, to finally accepted this awkward teenager. I am still her - she is me. I am her.

I don't want to remember anything

December 15, 1987

I just don't care. It shouldn't matter. You'll be okay, Sue. Just don't care - it doesn't matter if Cris wants to fool around. If he does, it's his own problem - its's funny how I always write down what I think I should feel - it's like a subtle brain washing technique.

Julie called today, kind of accused me of giving Amy lice - jesus christ. She must have said "okee dokee" and "any who" about 60 times.

December 20, 1987

We had a party last night. My friends and Cris's. Eric and Colleen, Scott and Tracy - oh, and Keri too. They came besides - the only people who knew us both. Lisanne brought egg rolls. She freaked out as I did. I was talking to Lisa and David, they are back from Chicago. It was good to see them. Char came also. She was really scared. She has really gotten pretty gross. I wonder if she has always been like that. Peggie was here too. I wonder if Cris really has slept with her. She's always nice, but, you, know, it's like, I bet Cris feels her up every chance he gets and Lisanne too. Gross! He's like got three women at the same time. I am pretty well decided now on what to do. It's like - I really like Cris (he is talking on the phone right now with Lisanne) (funny how Keri and Lisanne make a better couple than Cris and Lisanne) (this seems like a father-son rivalry.)

Well anyways - Cris is okay, and all, but it is extremely gross and disgusting behavior how he sleeps with other women. I thought of a new year's resolution - not making love until my birthday. But then I like fucked Cris the other night. I wish I wouldn't get so excited - I guess I'll have to learn restraint. I wasn't going to go with Cris and the kids for Xmas eve at Eric and Colleen's but after talking to them, maybe I will. I've been getting back into the book "necessary losses". It is really good. I plan to go see Pat Mulvehill tomorrow. I hope he can help.

I feel pretty manipulated by Cris. It just isn't a good thing. He's saying things like, "if only you changed little things, I could be happy." He wants me to be better about spending money and keeping the house clean. What is he going to do? Think? And then today, he says, "God damn it, there is macaroni and cheese in the refrigerator - why don't you ever look? You told me to save it!" And then I make beets besides and he yells again, "Selfish! Why didn't you look, there are beans in the fridge! I guess you over-estimated your intelligence." What a manipulative bastard.

He's telling me that we could be good together now after all this pain and suffering and mind-fucking games we've been playing. I think it sucks! He's only doing it because I'm seriously considering ending it all. Then he has the gall to say that when I think about Sean or Russ in a sexual fantasy sort of way is just as bad as Cris fucking and romancing and telling other women that he loves them. BULLSHIT!

He thinks that every relationship between members of the opposite sex has sexual undertones. That every man thinks about every woman and vice-versa.

Well, then - that seems not a rule but an exception. It really pisses me off. Well what I'm thinking is that I should like get a bearing on myself - understand my insecurities, my values/morals, my hopes/desires, my dependency problems and get better. I will never be happy, no matter what, in a relationship with Cris while he is carrying on extramarital relationships - EVER - PERIOD.

If I get better, then I will be happy with myself, If Cris changes, maybe he will be part of my life - if he never changes, I will be happy to toss him to the hungry lionesses ready to devour him. And that's sad for Cris because I know he can never be happy behaving like that for any prolonged period. But I really need to look out for myself.. Hey, I can already feel the return of myself. I was worried that I could never regain those eight years I spent with Cris - but I know I am wrong. I will have something. I still know who I am - and I've been here since I was a child - I just hide below the surface.

December 21, 1987

I am at Powderhorn Park. I took the kids here to slide. They are having fun on the hockey rink right now. I went to see Pat today. I want to write down things I want to remember before I forget.

• I might be really upset with my mother.
• I want to relate to my parents like they were real people.
• I am bad.
• I am ashamed.
• I stay in this bad relationship to hurt my mother (?).
• I know it's rational to get out of this relationship but emotions keep me here.
• Cris and I relate to each other as both parents and children.

I got home to the most unpleasant smell. Cris had burned his "sachet". I guess this means he doesn't love me anymore. Oh what a feeling. But I know burning doesn't mean a thing. It's scary to think he has been casting "spells" on me.

Oh well, good riddance.

Oh, I remember, Pat said I'm not ready to get rid of Cris yet, but I will. I wonder what it takes to be ready.

December 22, 1987

I am feeling anxiety. Cris said he hates me and will leave as soon as he is better (he has a cold). He also tells me I will never be a success - never have any money, or have a house. I tell myself this isn't true. But I will of course freak out if he leaves. But I know I will be okay. I have a plan of action.

1. Be calm
2. Look for work
3. Call about daycare
4. Call about Latchkey
5. Call your friends

I think I'll take the kids to the zoo today when I am done calling.

January 23, 1988

I haven't wanted to write anything in this journal. I don't want to remember anything. I don't want to whine or anything.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Wow, there it is. The end of my marriage. Finally. I let this torture draw out for 2-1/2 years. I tolerated Cris's affairs. I told myself he would change. He never has. He has had a series of relationships since the end of our marriage. Several long term relationships with women, quite similar to me. He likes his women vulnerable and dependent. He has cheated on every one of them.

Currently he lives with a woman, whom he calls his "wife" but he will never marry her. She drinks to pretend that Cris isn't sexually active with the girls whom he brings home to "photograph". He is a dirty old man. Once, one of my students said she had run into him at an Art Crawl. He had given her his card and asked her to call to schedule a photo shoot. To say I am creeped out is an understatment. Here is a link to his website. I am disgusted by his work. 

I know now that I could not leave Cris, nor ask him to leave because of my Asperger's need to not change. I like things to stay the same. Different is scary. I don't like changes in my routines. I am resentful and anxiety ridden when something unexpected arises. I like to eat the same things, drink my coffee with the same coffee creamer, drink the same soda, eat the same breakfast, leave home at the same time. drive the same way, routines make me safe. I do not like change.

I hate change so much - I could tolerate a party with my sham-husband - inviting his girlfriends to parade around one another and before me. I could tolerate being scolded about not reading labels on cans, or over-salting a hot dish, or breaking a cup or plate. Although, he could throw things across the room and shatter them - namely a plate filled with the over-salted hotdish. Sure it sounds funny now - but it was terrifying. I never lived with anyone violent before. 

My parents were kind, gentle and firm. They were fair. The punishment fit the crime. They tried to encourage us to be good people. Cris didn't have a horrible upbringing - but he resented his stepfather for replacing him at age 9. 

My adult children tell me that Cris still, to this day, still bad-mouths me. I have not even spoken to him since my grandson was born (that was almost 2 years ago.) His mother believes I have destroyed him. Trust me, he did that to himself. I feel nothing but shame for having stayed with him so long after discovering his unfaithfulness. Wait, I don't really feel anything for him. He is nothing to me. 

I am curious about how other people think

Undated

It's funny - you really don't know what you want. You can't even write your thoughts down. There is a blockage. I even call myself you. I think each thing as I write it down..slowly saying each word as it appears yet knowing what will come next. You say it right before you finish like rub(necks)ber.

I really analyze myself. That must be where I am different from a lot of people, I think of my siblings.

Hey, I could write anything down about Julie and Pete and Steve and Julie and Cindy and John, about a  lot of people. Cris just came sniffing loudly from the bathroom. He will never read this. So I can say anything I want. ooooh...diaphram please (clap clap)

I have always admired your gentleness.

Being the man who wears the dress, all I desire is a house husband.

December 15, 1987

These are things I need to ask myself.

What do I want? More specifically, what do I want from Cris? He is no good. If he wanted to live happily ever after it might be another story but experience shows this is not the case. Cris has had lovers for so long, all of ianthe's life. He will not change. He may be remorseful about leaving us - oh well - not my problem.

I want to go to school but I really need to become independent. Maybe I should get a job and not go to school. If I worked 7-3 it may be okay. I would need daycare for the kids only. i could go to school next fall. Cris has to get out of my life.

I mustn't hurt him intentionally. Matt, who works at the media center is married and has a child. I wonder if he "looks around" like Cris the fink.

Video
Oooh look at me...I looked so young. Oh god do I feel awful to have said that...oh god you stupid cow.

Ooh, look at that! Oh, I was so thin!

God get the damn camera outta my face god you stupid cow.

Start 003617

(I can only guess this is in response to a video being shown in class - the instructor - a visiting artist - was always showing her own work, and I didn't much care for her)

................................................................

Having paused for such a long time from writing in this blog over the anxiety of the end of my first marriage seems so silly to me right now. I did feel terrible anxiety when I stopped. I was so afraid. All the feelings and shame flooding back. Worry about what I actually wrote of the experience in my journal. I should have known I would gloss over the pain. I do tend to do that. Leave no tracks. I hate records of pain. I really do. Since I had invaded Cris's privacy by reading his journals when I became suspicious of his prolonged absences and his emotional distance, I believed that at any time, someone could find my journal and read it - even though I claim the exact opposite in the first entry above. I know that if I were to journal today, about my daily emotional roller coaster - actually just calm to shame - to calm - to righteous superiority - I would require a lock box to store it. I would require it - not because anyone would even be interested in the contents - but I wouldn't be able to say what is really in here. 

Sure I speak freely after a post, and analyze myself in present context, or in historical - but that isn't the same thing. I can speak freely of the despair I feel often, of my loneliness and anger at not being able to be alone enough. I can speak of obsessions and preoccupations. I can speak of my emotional pain. These are all things I would say out loud, to a friend - there are a few of you who stop by to read that know this.

I am curious about how other people think. I have always been aware that my thoughts were a little out of sync with those around me. I love that I state it in my journal in 1987. I bet I could grab out even older journals from my box and find the same words. I am different. Everyone else does not think.

I wonder what it would be to live life without the "projected self" - that curious Theory of Mind being natural and matter of course. For those of you who are not quite sure what I mean by this, I exist in this world and project myself upon others - everyone. So anything anyone does, I read it as if I were the one saying or doing it. So, everyone is me. I project my beliefs, intentions, desires, and knowledge to those around me. When people act in ways that challenge my understanding of them (me) then I get all riled up - hence the indignant self-righteousness feeling. I am trying to entangle myself from the world by purposefully developing a more expanded Theory of Mind that will take into account that everyone else has their own experiences and feelings and beliefs and understandings and I need to keep that in mind when interacting with them. Okay- that *sounds* like I know it - but I only know the words. I am good with words.

Yesterday, I was talking with my therapist. I told him I was interested in two different emotional experience that I often have - self-righteous indignation and shame. That pretty much sums up my personal hell. Since Minnesota decided that it would be a good idea to dump several inches of melting snow on the freeways at rush hour, leaving well in advance of my appointment still made me 35 minutes late. So with 20 minutes - he said we had enough time for the "self-righteousness". 

People who know me on Facebook, know I have "triggers". I get set off on rants for apparently no reason (well, I know the reason). My doctor was saying, "Most people are..." he trailed off, so I guessed the missing word "stupid?" - "No, not stupid, most people are more forgiving of others foibles". He told me that most people don't care if someone missed their point and can brush things off. They decide that on a scale of zero=it doesn't matter at all to 10=I have to address this right away. That FB posts are zeros for most people. Hmmm. Strange. No Seriously. I was confused. I still am. We didn't have time to finish the conversation. Really? Do neurotypical people really not care? Don't they feel the adrenalin rush? Can't they feel it? Or do they and then they choose to ignore it?

Tears are filling my eyes right now. That is strange. I think I am crying because I really don't "get" it. It makes no sense - I cannot "crack the code". I tried to talk to my son about it - he is the most like me - he didn't get it either. So, we are no help to one another. I don't know what to do. Maybe my husband can explain it better to me.

This post hurts me to write

November 21, 1987

It's kind of funny. Cris is this pained person trying desperately to have his cake and eat it too. He wnts lots of women - always will have them.

I am making him leave - can't say I didn't try. Now he will live with Lisanne. She is so happy and "my gosh, he's so cute!" She doesn't know...

I feel really good.

Undated

My back still hurts.
Cris is back home but it is different. He is not my husband anymore. It is more like we are friends who have had a spat and we are trying hard not to ruin our friendship.

Oh well, I think I must have the house and kids. Cris gets much too angry. I may get angry but I never hurt the kids.

December 3, 1987

Staying late night to edit my video. Laid on the floor staring out the skylights. I am afraid to write things down. Don't want anything stupid to come out that I will laugh at later. I slept with Cris last night. I am sorry [that] I did. He is very selfish or should I say lustful and not loving. I shouldn't sleep with him anymore. I'm always sorry when I do.

I went for a walk with Sean and got high. I would really like to have a fling with him. But I don't know how to make a pass. Oh Sue, all in good time...

December 5, 1987

Stayed over night at Steve and Julie's house - pretty anxiety ridden time. I feel in the way. I bought a book "Earth Power" for Cris last night when I met Steve's family at Northtown [Mall]. Got the baby food jars that Julie has saved for me. I want to fill them for Cris. Now I'm all done with his Christmas shopping. Now it's Mom and Dad and Mom and Dave. Maybe I'll do some prints for them. I want to plan a party. Cris wants to pick the winter solstice but I'd rather pick a different day. Oh well...all ends in love and war.

Undated

I split the mahogany. I didn't drill the holes. What? - maybe ten more minutes...

Read "The Gift"again and then give him back himself.


Undated


It's funny - you really don't know what you want. You can't even write your thoughts down. There is a blockage. I even call myself you. I think each thing as I write it down...

Together alone with myself

November 12, 1987

Oh, I'm sure

write to music

never could.

November 16, 1987

Oscar Wilde 1880, unknown photographer

Oscar Wilde
I saw his picture in a book
I stopped and stared.
I checked the name
Oscar Wilde
My God, what a handsome face.

I might go insane.
I don't know if I can just go ahead and leave. My head starts to ache. The pressure is really intense. I'm really too afraid to act.






November 18, 1987

This is the way the video should go...
Women talking in the house - Jan to Halle.
Record this whole conversation on tape altering it by editing superfluous information and repeating things.
The other action should be in the driving with silence. The conversation stopping suddenly and Halle driving the back - repeating?
Images in slides could possibly be "couples" generic couples in love or bodies intertwined - fleshy, sensual would work very well.

(Evening)November 18, 1987

There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.
- "The Story of an Hour" - Kate Chopin

November 19, 1987

It has been so hard for me to write. It seems a time to reread what I have been thinking. I want to talk no longer. I cannot.
Cris wears Lisanne's black shirt. The cuffs of which cover his hands to his knuckles. Upon the last button hole, hangs a silver heart.
She came for dinner and [later] we [Cris and I] talked about us. We are going to be friends, that's what I need.
"We called a cab in fear of your reaction to her staying the night even though we probably would not have slept together."
The insensitivity to my feelings smacks me in the face. Cris wears Lisanne's shirt like a trophy. His bodily scents oozing into the black cotton fibers, weft and warp holding his essence.
When he returns the shirt (which may never happen, he is such a thief), Lisanne can take it to bed with her, wrapping her arms and legs about the shirt and deeply smelling it.

I need to just stop. Cris is such an asshole really. I am not finding him at all attractive, at all.

Cold, cold wind blow
See what's left of me.

God! Jesus Christ! I really make myself totally sick at times. Here's something else to think about...

Coffin-board, heavy stone,
Lie on her breast,
I vex my heart alone.
She is at rest.

Peace, Peace, she cannot hear
Lyre or sonnet,
All my life's buried here,
Heap earth upon it.
- Avignon - Oscar Wilde

=================================================

I wrote a lot. I left a lot out. It is strange how after 23 years, I skip the horror, write of video editing and quoting short stories. I mention a conversation finally after three days of hell.

The end of my marriage started on the 16th. I had forgotten my notebook for my afternoon class, so a friend offered to drive me home. I burst happily in the door, my children turned, smiling at me. As I stepped in I saw her. A young woman was sitting on the couch. "Oh, hai", I said, grabbing my notebook off the bookcase. Back in the car, as I buckled in I said, "My husband is having another affair." 

That was what my three sentence observation was about. I was thinking of leaving. I had threatened Cris before - that he had left the last time - leaving me with 3 young children - alone - distraught - empty. I had threatened to leave him the next time.
On the morning of the 17th. I was going to register for my second semester at MCAD. Cris and I had a routine. I had morning school, he had afternoon school. I worked some evenings. He went out and romanced women the evenings that I didn't work. This morning, he had not yet arrived. He had stayed out all night. He had not done this before - at least not since he had moved back home to me. I guess since I had caught him "red handed" the day before, Cris decided to drop the pretense of a "study group" and indulged himself in a romantic evening.

I watched out the window. Waiting. Growing more and more enraged. Where Was He? Where Is He? I Have To Go! The children played nervously in the next room, leaving me alone. A half-hour after my time to register, the city bus stopped and off came Cris. I grabbed the window curtain, tearing down the curtain rod. I screamed. I beat the window with the rod. I turned and beat one of Cris's paintings, ripping it, screaming enraged.

As Cris entered the duplex,  I opened the door, continuing to scream. I grabbed handfuls of books off the shelf next to the door. I pelted him with my Dostoevsky books, "War and Peace", "The Idiot", "The Brothers Karamazov", down they flew, hitting their mark as he climbed the steps. 

He reached the top, grabbing me violently and pushing me backwards into the bedroom. He threw me down on the bed, choking me. I kicked him, struggled to get away. The children stood silently at the foot of the bed watching - or were they crying? I did manage to get him off of me. I called my sister to get the children. I called my friend Halle to come get me, take me away. I had a video camera checked out to film my final project for class. 

I was bruised and swollen. Halle drove me to Stillwater to her friend Jan's house. She had not not planned to rescue me that day. She had planned to rescue Jan. Jan had woke up that morning to find that her husband had taken the children in the night, leaving a note on the table. She was distraught. 

Needing to tape anything. Anything. I pulled out the camera, setting the microphone into the bowl of fruit on the table. I held the camera low and listened to Halle talk to Jan. Jan began to open up and as most people do, she started to forget the camera. I turned it on and began to tape her stories. 

I did actually get a great story. She was the cheater in her relationship. I hated her. I was able to piece together a story and outtakes into a video that meant something to me. I made her stand for my husband, I made her seem petty and insensitive. The entry on November 18th was "faked" to make it seem as if I had preplanned the whole video. If I checked my visual journals, I am sure I could find the actual story I had wanted to film. I don't have the energy to look - and that is beside the point.

 After missing my appointment to register, my life took a drastic turn. I decided to leave MCAD, to apply to the University of Minnesota to peruse a degree in Art Education. After working on my video until midnight, I went home and gathered my things, then left.

I did it. I left Cris for 3 days, well actually, two nights and three days. I slept at a friends house the first night, on the wooden floor, waking early, sore and going to school in the same clothes I had worn the day before. I slept the next night in my car, in the MCAD parking lot. It was late November. It was cold. My windows iced up. I was frozen. I changed my clothes before going to the restroom to brush my teeth before class. After class, I defiantly went home. I hugged my babies and ordered Cris and Lisanne OUT! 

I  am still pretty sly, hiding all my turmoil in quotes from books, and quick conversations. I am still like that now. I am quiet in my discomfort. I speak to no one about my pain. I do have a secret blog where I confess my dissatisfaction, my despair, my sorrow. You could look at me, and only see either boredom or disgust. Those are my expressions. I am a secret that nobody knows. 

My husband, Anthony, never reads my blogs. It feels empty to me that he doesn't. He sits next to me, coding. I am alone.

When I think you are in love with another

November 9, 1987

When I think you are in love with another,
I must continually go to the bathroom, my bowels turning to rid myself of this disgrace.
I clean the little things in my life.
Scrubbing with Mr. Clean the motif "Crown" on the stove until the years of grease embedded in its intricacies are removed, along with the paint.
The bed moves too much, threatening to collapse on my little ones.
I tie it up with hooks sunk deep into the window frame.
Using clothesline, I think "This was once used to hang your diapers to dry when you were much younger."

You come home, still smelling of incense.
I only have harsh words for you.

---------------------------------------------------------------

I have stared at this page for weeks. Every day glancing at my journal sitting to the left of my computer. I pick it up. I open it to the marked page and remember. I close the cover with a shudder. The pain I feel at reading my words is deep and invisible, my heart pounds as adrenalin is secreted into my body. So here it is November 9th, twenty-three years later. I will face the pain.

Cris was a cruel man. How could a man with three children and a wife at home continue to seek out and pursue new, younger women - bring them home while I was at school to play with my preschool aged children? How heartless. The man is an emotional vampire, a sociopath. 

This prose may not seem all that dramatic to you, after all the other much more obviously painful posts. Yet, the pain is for me is as fresh as the day I wrote the words. This is the raw scab that Cris kept ripping open. That I allowed him to salt and watch fester. It is a description of the way I experience emotions. Body feelings. I never knew I had such a limited emotional vocabulary. Alexithemia is what it is called - to not be able to identify feelings with words. So I describe the sensations.

I express my years of nausea as "needing to go to the bathroom". Two years of constant stress were taking their toll on me. I felt fear all the time.

After reading a self-help book about relationships, I told him that I was setting him free - that I could not force him to love me. He took it as freedom to continue his romances more vigorously. I had thought that it would give him pause - make him think about his children, about me - just what he was giving up. I think a lot about it now. How my underdeveloped Theory of Mind could trick me into believing that people would react to my words the way that I would react. I had no way of predicting the behavior of others. People were such a mystery to me.

My children, now adults, attended Cris' birthday party last January. He threw the party for himself. He invited only young women - most younger than his children. My children described his behavior surrounded by the young, squealing girls. They played a suggestive word game - the girls giggling and carrying on. Cris' girlfriend sat in another room, drinking herself into a stupor. The children choose to leave when one of the girls suggested they play dress up downstairs in Cris' makeshift studio. It makes me physically ill to imagine it. 

I feel sympathy for his current girlfriend - whom he refers to as his "wife". She is just like me. All his girlfriends end up like me. Empty inside. He is an emotional vampire. I was his first victim. I wonder when she will find the power to escape him. I wish her well.

My story starts and ends with me

November 2, 1987

School conference with Aja's teacher today. She does well in school, but needs some work with letter sounds and math concepts. She is fine though and tries hard. I think she gets frustrated too easily.

I am sick. It is really terrible to be sick. Ianthe fell asleep counting pennies today at 11:30. She must have been pretty wiped out.

We had lots of fun on Halloween, in Bayport. Aja and Harrison went out ahead of us and arrived home about five minutes before Cris, Ianthe and me. Cris took them back out again. They were too afraid of some of the spookier houses.

Scary Pirate Harrison and Spooky Ghost Aja!

I am interested in the occult lately. Want to know more. Maybe if I close my eyes and just let myself write some thing might happen...

/rolls eyes

I once was a river
trees standing tall
never enough time to grow
the wind seems so
restless the snow so cold
Once I could speak
but now there are no words
My lab is small
the wall are white
one of my assistants is
a little girl with curls
and a puffy yellow dress.
The other is a man
in a lab coat. his hair
is thin and dark -
balding at the top.
They each stand in wait
with chalk by the board
man to the left girl
to the right.

November 5, 1987

Before I was born, I went with my other and father to Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada. There is a black and white picture, with crinkly edges (the old fashioned kind, you know) of my mother with her big fat pregnant belly. This is me. I know it and feel it, more surely than any other early memory. I am reminded of my own children - Aja in utero attending the Alice Cooper concert - she did not like it. Ianthe went to REM a month before she was born. I danced - she didn't even twitch - she never did - nothing then or now ever phases her.

Magic, Cris is taking a very intellectual approach. I doubt it will ever work for him. Me, I've gone through believing in it. I have feared it and realized that truly fearing something is the same as knowing it is real - so I just shifted focus. Fear is not a good approach.

I want to help Cris, but I think although he thinks it is his own doing, he is helpless. He wants proof - I've already had it. I will make him an "altar" - he is so into ceremony. I'll stock it with glass vials and wool cloth and many colored candles. I'll get him another mortar and pestle (maybe his mom still has ours) and a beautiful glass tray in which to burn things. I'll get him a glass pan to make an infusion. Maybe even stock the vials with a few remote herbs. Oh, how exciting.

========================================

I live in a very black and white world. I am the star of my existence. I have and always will be. It comforts me to know my story starts and ends with me.

When I was a young mother, I wished I could disappear. I found a book on magic that talked about how you could become invisible. He wasn't talking about becoming invisible in the "poof" gone sort of way - it was more along the lines of "blending" in. That thought really appealed to me. I practiced.


I dressed up sometimes. Wore clothes that were not mine - that I had bought at a garage sale or been given by a friend. I would do up my hair in a different style. I would paint my face with makeup - I never wear make up - I did in high school, but haven't since. I like my face just fine thank you. 


I would look totally NOT ME. I went to places that I knew Cris would be at: Uptown, the Walker Art Center, an Art Crawl downtown. I would casually walk around using the "blending" techniques. Breathe in slowly, hold, breathe out slowly, breathe. Stay to the edges, move slowly. Stay out of sight lines.


I would watch Cris with Char. I was insane with jealousy. At this point in my life, I do not understand why I could spend so much time "stalking" my own husband, confused about why he had chosen another, believing it HAD to be me. I knew about Char in July - Ianthe was born in September. I finally left him for good in June, before Ianthe turned three. That is a long time to torture one's self. Why did I do that to myself. I know now. The patterns of existence. I have routines. I hate my routines to be disrupted. But back then, I didn't know that Asperger's ruled my thoughts, ruled my behavior. Ruled my doubt.


You know that feeling in your stomach? The one that makes you slightly sick - the adrenaline being released - the slow burn? Think of that. Three years. And I thought I was the one at fault. I wasn't a good enough wife. I didn't cook well enough. I didn't keep the house clean enough, I didn't read the labels right: bough creamed corn instead of whole kernel. But it wasn't me at all. I was good enough. It was not me. It was him. 


I enjoyed my invisible self. I was no one. I could walk freely around unafraid. I asked the neighbor downstairs to listen for my babies, if they cried. Then donning my stranger's clothing, I would take the bus to Uptown and walk around, following Cris and Char. They never once saw me. I enjoyed it as much as I was pained by it. I think I enjoyed the secret me - it was the free me - the normal human with no children me. I was not ME. I was what others were to me. A Stranger.


Sometimes now, I wish I could disappear. To become invisible. I wish I were invisible now. To disappear from the world. To work in the dark. Alone. All Alone, very quiet, only the sound of the bubbles in my can of coke and the bouncing of the keyboard as I type, and the quiet pat, pat, pat as another cat comes to see what I have written tonight.


A secret. The story starts and ends with me. I am not afraid of that.

Survivor's guilt

Sharon Olds, last year I wanted to remember her. I never have found a book of hers. Well, I've never looked either. Tears come into my eyes when I read it. If I read it again, the tears will come again. The tears will flow. Oh, it hurts. When you just "have" to do something. Nobody knows, or cares, but there is a sense in you that makes you perform. An urgency in your voice/eyes that lets people know it is necessary for you to do these things.

In Poetry class, I sit between two others. Sharna is at my left. She is panicky. She says she has a brain tumor. She says she is going to write a book series of her dream realities: Fantasy Adventure. She thinks she is dying. She hurries to finish up her undone ends in this life - which is too short for even an old man/woman to finish all.

She is panicked. I feel sorry for her. I do not want her to panic. This is not the time to panic at all. I was thinking and really believing that we shouldn't ever ask why. It takes up too much time. Even in a long prolonged life, there is never time. Sharna, get on with your stages of excepting the inevitability of death. You might think that you have done just so, but you haven't. I'm not saying I could, but I do know what should be done. I also know that many people do not die of brain tumors. You just may be one of those who can survive. You are so worried, an adolescent wanting to experience it all before you die. Sex, the mystery of sec and love - oh, just a fantasy. But yes, it is real, poor Sharna. Don't panic.

==========================================================

I remember this so well, poor panicky Sharna. Awkward Sharna. I took pity on her, someone more awkward than myself. I always did that - I still do. The awkward make me seem graceful and confident. I feel powerful at these times. Their obvious lack of social skills, minimizes my own. I actually use their tension to mask mine.

Brain tumors and cancer - hot button topics for me.

It was a brain tumor that actually led to my Asperger's diagnosis. My friend, my colleague, my next-door-teacher, my children's Art teacher, my mentor, my peer, Mark Wald, had a brain tumor. He was a strong man - a will as great to live as my own. He was given only a few months to live, he lived 18 months past his diagnosis. I loved that man. Before he died, he said he had something to do, something planned for him - in the afterlife. He knew that I do not believe in such things, but I agreed and smiled through the tears. My friend Denny had accompanied me to this final visit with my friend. Mark, a man that always was dapper and fit and beautiful, lay helpless, swollen from steroids, and (I assume) spinal fluid build up. He had laid out a bevy of snacks for us, veggies and dip, plates and napkins, drinks. It must have taken him more than an hour to prepare. We talked. This last time. Denny and I both grateful for the presence of the other. We ate our snacks. We talked of the beauty of art - of Mark's legacy to the community - of his pain - of his preparedness to let go - just not yet - soon. This was two weeks before he died.

We had heard that he had later, in the night, awakened, he had climbed into the attic to retrieve his favorite Christmas items. He set them up. What a feat of will. The man was a true Christian - a Catholic - rejected by the church for his very being. He loved Christmas. A week before Christmas, Mark lost the ability to speak. He was a chatter bug. He loved to talk. He was trapped into silence. His family and friends gathered to take turns at his side. Talking to him - he could make expressions, but for once, he couldn't add anything to the conversation. I can only imagine how painful that must have been for him.

My friend, Jeanne called a day or so before Christmas eve, to chat and talk about her "shift" with Mark on Christmas Day. I think, I remember at least - memories are weird like that - I told her that I thought Mark might let go before then. That he loved Christmas. Making it to Christmas eve would be close enough. I thought of my children's great-grandfather Norm. He made it to Christmas eve too. My own father made it through a weekend of surprise visits by his children, even found the energy to attend mass - one more time. He died on my daughter, Ianthe's birthday.

Jeanne called Christmas eve evening. Yes, Mark had gone peacefully the day. His mother had held him and told him it was okay to go. I cannot begin to measure the loss that Mark's family felt, his partner felt or the loss that we three friends - Denny, Jeanne and me - felt and his other friends felt. I can tell you that Mark Wald lived a glorious life. He taught students to make beautiful Art. He taught students about tolerance and acceptance. He was one of the first Minneapolis School teachers to "come out". He made beautiful Art too.

My Friend, "Sparky" Mark Wald - he would have been amused that I had initially misspelled "sparky" as "spanky".

I have survivor's guilt. I survived a second bout of cancer that left me with a 30% chance to live. A bone marrow transplant (my own marrow) gave me a 50% chance. When I tried to cheer Mark up, that I had survived a 30% chance - he said that sounded cheery to his chances. But he was willing to put in the hard work to go through the surgeries, the radiation, the chemo to keep his chances as open as possible. He managed to return to his classroom for 2nd semester. Jeanne found the strength to help him everyday - I do not now how. She didn't take to me right away - I am not easy to approach - but as the year went on, we grew closer and closer. I could not imagine life without Jeanne now. 

Near the end of the school year, a viscous student accused Mark of racism. Unbelievable. False. The school district removed him from the classroom 2 weeks before the end of the school year. The Loudermill hearing (the witch hunt in Minneapolis Public Schools) removed all of Mark's chances to return to the only thing he wanted to do - to teach. They took away his reason for existence.

Next school year was even worse. Mark had not been replaced - because he had not been fired so much as "crushed. A long term sub had to be found. Anyone but "that woman" who subbed for him in the winter - not her - anyone but her (I refuse to name her, I feel only kindness towards her now) - but it was "that woman". She was inexperienced in 2-D Art. She was inexperienced as a teacher. She had social issues that confused me. Later Denny told me that she had grown up in a closed sect of missionaries. We clashed. She did not understand me. I tried to be nice, she thought I had other motivations. She was mean. I tried the silent treatment. I reversed again and tried to be nice, she told me I was after her job. It was hell.

After Mark died, Denny and I, who were left at school together, alone, without him, we pulled together in our sorrow. At lunch, we would sometimes just look at each other with great sadness. Sometimes - well - mostly me - I would burst into tears at the slightest provocation - the sight of the duct tape that Mark had used to hang student work in the stair well, being awarded the plaque congratulating me - in Mark's stead - for his Gate's Scholar. He should have been there to receive that. He should have been. Not me. Oh, such sorrow. My engineer, a caring soul often the butt of jokes by his fellow coworkers, presented me with Mark's sign - the one that directed parents for teacher conferences, when I returned to school after the holiday recess.  That year was hell. I wanted to die. I cried everyday. I missed Mark so much.

The following school year was not much better. We had hired a new, talented Artist - a gem in the district, so we started out optimistic. In October, during a doctor's visit, I confessed my suicidal ideations - well, I had gone because of the thoughts - no "confession" needed. He was frank with me. "You know, if you were anyone else, I would hospitalize you. I strongly suggest that you start on some anti-depressants." I hesitated. Wasn't I supposed to be sad? He said there was sad and then there was SAD. I probably needed help to climb out of the hole I was in. 

The pills helped a bit. I suffered from anxiety for years, my old doctor had given me clonazapam when I felt the stomach grinding anxiety was more than I could bear - I couldn't function. My new doctor was a little less willing to provide me with the same pill. He gave me 1/2 a month dosage, to last a month or longer. I tried. He told me it was good to take a break now and then. 

In March, I swore at a lady in the school office. I went upstairs, crying, called the doctor's office to talk to my nurse. I asked for a referral to a therapist - and to someone who could prescribe psychotropic meds - to evaluate the dosages and meds I was taking. It took me 6 weeks to get an appointment to see someone. I was late. I was lost. I found her 10 minutes late. She tried to calm me. I was afraid, I was in a state where I usually flee - fly away home little birdie - fly away home! She saw something in me, in my behavior. I am ever so grateful. She stopped. She asked, "Has anyone ever suggested you might have Asperger's?" I stopped to consider. "Well, back when Ianthe was having trouble in school - must have been in the mid 90's - a psychiatrist told me he thought I had "social autism". Like the doctors during my transplant calling me "hyper-manic", I thought he was making up a syndrome to fit me." Social Autism - come on - what the hell was that?! 

Oh. In 1994, Asperger's was added to the DSM-VI. It was new to the psychiatric community. They didn't know much about it. I was SO Close to a diagnosis that could have saved my children. 

Survivor's guilt. It is a killer. It eats away at your soul. Why me. Why not her? Why him? Why not me?

A day before my Transplant - my 30th Birthday

A few weeks after I started producing WBC - with my "kids"

A side note. I recently spoke with my old doctor. Before I let him go, I mentioned that I had been diagnosed with Asperger's last year. He laughed, "I could have told you that - had we known about it back then! Wait till I tell the Hammer tomorrow!" /smile

I am on a Catherine Wheel

October 15, 1987

"Can you see to write?" Phebe asked, "maybe I am taking this atmosphere thing too far." We sit in the darkened room, lit by one window, uncurtained and a small flame from the purple candle that Phebe has brought.

Today is Martyr's Day. I remember being in class with Phebe last Martyr's day. What in the heck is Martyr's day anyways? I imagine it must be some quasi-religious day invented by those vicious Roman's in order to convert all their domain to Catholicism.

But maybe I am wrong. Maybe it is just for the simple people in the world who have made a supreme sacrifice to mankind.

Martin Luther King to further equal rights.

Gandhi to bring peace in his religiously split, Monarch ruled country.

Joan of Arc, burned at the stake, dressed as a man in armor to fight as the voice had commanded her so.

Catherine Wheel. What the heck is a Catherine wheel? Could it be as the TV show depicted? Wooden wheels, mounted high in the air with people strapped upon them, spinning in the breeze, being eaten by the birds?

Where there ever dragons? I wonder. I really would want to believe that there were. If there are wizards, there must be dragons. Might be a bit like Black & White magic, if there is good, there must be evil. If a wizard is good, his dragon counterpart is evil, if a wizard is evil then the dragon will be good.

Why do all the good dragons live in China?

======================================================

I am seriously on a Catherine wheel. Right Now. Not Cool. Plus not making people around me happy either. Either I am not clear, or they aren't - I don't know. I felt like I did when I was buying my house. Drive here! Drive there! Turn this statement in! Turn in this form! Are you disabled as per ADA guidelines?

I want my job back. I want my kids back. They need me. I want my room back. I want my server back. I want. I want. I want. I want. I do not want to be paid to not go to school. I want to be paid to go to work - like the rest of the world. work. I may not be totally suited to my job, but I am really good at it.

Catherine wheel, spinning. Spinning my wheels. Waiting. Waiting. Wanting to return to my comfortable routine. Please. I want to get off this thing. Stop this spinning. Please. Someone help me down.

treacherous skin circles

October 12, 1987

My hands are very dry. It has to do with the season. in junior high school, the palms of my hands would peel and looked like some sort of disease, The spiral curvatures of the peels would flake and I would attempt to chew the dead skin off, pressing flat the palm of my hand against my chin and nose trying to reach my teeth towards the treacherous skin circles, snake-like, weaving of skin, peeling every fall so that the new pink skin underneath had a chance to breathe.

Ianthe wore her purple feetsie pajamas for most of the morning. She played legos, putting babies to bed, we read the Gingerbread man and the Bird Identification book though she grew bored after looking at fifty pages of birds.

When she dressed, we played airplane, acrobatics on the couch, Woa, Waooo!

We made macaroni and cheese for lunch. Ianthe ate a few chocolate chips, taking each one for a run through the house before popping it in her mouth. She watched me strain and restrain again the newly made orange juice to fill her bottle with. She sat on the counter watching, anticipating, but when I finished, I put it into the refrigerator. "Later Ianthe, later, for your nap," to no avail, she flung herself to the floor crying.

While she was still eating her lunch I started putting on my shoes. "Shoes, Sock," Ianthe said. "No, not now Ianthe, eat." I saw Harrison's bus. Ianthe grabbed the curtain of the window possessively, "My, No, Mine!"

She gave me a big snotty, macaroni and cheese kiss and hug before I left. Cris kissed me and I touched his chest hairs lightly, stroking with my right hand. "Make spinach lasagna with cheddar cheese for supper tonight, okay?"

Once I told my grandmother she made the best lasagna in the world. Weeks later, I told my mother the same thing but she called me on it.

==========================================


I understand the dry skin now. I wash my hands. A lot. Like, all the time. I seriously use three hand towels in the kitchen when making a meal. I touch the counter. I wash. I pour the oil. I wash. I cut the food. I wash.

I can bet that my hands peeled in the fall in junior high school because I spent the majority of my days either perched in a tree or playing on the red concrete floor in the basement, constructing vast Lego villages for the bus babies. Always the same: hospitals, hotels, homes. Roads drawn with chalk.

The trees were the best. I loved the fruit trees the most. In my neighborhood there were several great climbing trees with fruit to eat. Sour cherries and wonderful apples at the Kleppers. The Sexton's had a plum tree - delicious. In the backyard we had 2 apple trees - not great for climbing but the unripened fruit was good if you threw it at the ground to bruise it well - and a rhubarb bush.

I was disappointed to have to "grow up" and stop climbing trees. How very disappointing. Once I stopped climbing trees, my palms stopped shedding, but I still have dried hands in the fall through spring.

I won't say I wish I were dead this time. I will say that being a kid was pretty awesome when I was alone in a tree watching the other kids play.

Allen Ginsberg

October 1, 1987

I believe this entry is in response to poetry being read to us in class by Phoebe Hanson.

Kansas disco gay girls
"Chances are" farm boys
fat asses festivities and
mechanical things irrevocably connected.

"I'm a victim of telephones"
telephone victimization
always rings at the most inopportune times but we always answer.

"Flying over Detroit"
injustice in feelings of murder, discrimination
red petaled flower of my body anger.
They have fucked up the planet.
Purely military consideration
Schizophrenics running the planet
Military is waiting for orgasms,
but there are not enough orgasms to go around.
Environmental crisis
bloody press cards
Americans/Vietnam?Martians
have bullets in their heads
Buffalo Gay 90's bring them back.

============================================================

I love books. I love poems. I love words, and speech and language. My thoughts ramble. I have been settling into my new home life. The children are home, the grandchildren too. My husband has adopted our adult children. We are a big extended family - and for the most part, all of us are very happy.

Tony and I had just made a budget, days before the first child returned home to us. Now that budget is out the window. A dream deferred. No travel trailer for Lady Door. That's okay. I am resigned to it. Trading the trailer for a chance to see my grandchildren grow - hands down - not even a glance back at the trailer.

The children are wonderful - and distracting. I can get so wound up in talking with them, making things and acting as their servant that I can forget things that matter outside. Like going to school or creating curriculum or grading.

I worry about the new principal at my school. I am paranoid that she is watching me, waiting to make a misstep. I am afraid. My stomach grinds. On the plus side - I have lost 13 pounds as a result of stress.

I feel that I don't get any time for myself. I fear that I speak too much and do not listen enough. I wish I wasn't me. I wish death upon myself almost daily. I hate myself. I want to die.

Things I might look for (so as to tear down the walls) Part 2

Watch out when you start really wanting something. Having coffee with Cindy today, I asked her to order the children's book "Everybody knows what a dragon looks like" I told her I would write her a check. Thinking about it now I wonder "why?" I have read this book maybe ten times already. Do I really need to have it?

Watch out when things start making too much sense. I remember studying the book "You can live forever in paradise on Earth", with Chris Berger, the Jehovah's Witness. It all made perfect sense. The bible suddenly alive with interconnections. The trouble was not that the logic didn't make sense, but rather that I didn't believe in the existence of God.

I would snigger to myself as all these women and God fearing children would pray to this "Jehovah" to bless them. It kind of put a damper on things, not believing in God. So now I fear the end of the world awaiting the signs...knowing I will be one of those poor souls who will die and not live forever with all of them over in Stillwater. I wonder why it is that I believe in the end even though I can't believe in the guy who is supposed to bring all this about - I gotta watch that and not let it happen again.

3. Gotta watch those conspiracy theories that keep hatching in my brain. I sincerely doubt that the world knows something collectively that I just don't get. Who cares if Eric and Colleen are successful and going to church every god damned Sunday; that my parents on Wednesdays go for spontaneous drives down to Redwing for a bite to eat and to catch a view; or that Cindy and John are in league with hundreds of other adoptive parents of Korean children; and that Seven Eleven employees insist that I wear shoes or they won't serve me next time. I wonder why Powderhorn Park attracts the greatest number of single white women with black children and why I even wonder about such a trivial thing. And wonder why my daughter sits alone on the bus on the way home "with only Jim" (her backpack) to keep her company "sometimes he dances for me," she says. Why does Cris refuse to get out of bed if the TV is on on Saturday morning, and for that matter, My God, is He Invisible? The children, tip toeing into bed, touching me lightly on the shoulder "mom, mom" ten zillion times, it is hardly worth it to sleep pat eight o'clock.

4. Watch out when you think you're different than anyone else. I still watch my shadow when I walk, glance at my reflection while opening shiny doors, pick my nose when I am alone, masturbate while my husband is sleeping next to me late at night, Space out and not pay any attention to my surroundings when I am driving. When I read, I cannot hear the pleas for help from my children, I would rather sleep than fix dinner for my family, sometimes fantasize about extramarital affairs but doubt I could ever go through with it, read other people's mail, eavesdrop on others conversations, think I am really any fucking different than anyone else? Ha, what a laugh! Can I change and be on the outside looking in: probably not.

5. Watch out when you want to give up out of hopelessness.

=================================================

I feel overwhelming hopelessness now. The sadness is oppressive. It presses on me - I push it away, robotic-ly. I have things to do. Do them. I can't. Too much to do. This list is a list of awareness. Of how I differed from those around me, yet, I wasn't all that different. I am human after all. All of us Aspergians are. I will try to take up the blog again now that school started again. Hold me to it.

Things I might look for (so as to tear down the walls)

Watch out when you start really wanting something. Having coffee with Cindy today, I asked her to order the children's book "Everybody knows what a dragon looks like" I told her I would write her a check. Thinking about it now I wonder "why?" I have read this book maybe ten times already. Do I really need to have it?

Watch out when things start making too much sense. I remember studying the book "You can live forever in paradise on Earth", with Chris Berger, the Jehovah's Witness. It all made perfect sense. The bible suddenly alive with interconnections. The trouble was not that the logic didn't make sense, but rather that I didn't believe in the existence of God.

Lists

September 29, 1987
Indecision about my mind. Just that wondering if I see things my own way, and what that is, and where it will lead. Sifting through things that I like, that he likes, that she likes, that they like and trying to find the balance. Striking up a balance in myself.

Daring to say, do, be things I might otherwise become. This is all pretty vague. What is the difference between things chosen and things given? Like my family (given), my in-laws (chosen?)

What is it exactly that we choose anyway?

Power struggle
Cris won't get out of bed in the morning. If I want to sleep in, Cris comes back to bed when things have quieted down. I don't think this is fair.

When I get up, I'm up to stay at least until ianthe takes her nap at say, 1:00, then I might take a nap, say one time out of ten. Oppose me dear. Inflict guilt upon me because we have fallen through fate into this endless and constricting love relationship. But Guilt! Is it necessary? Do I create these feelings in you? You lie in bed.

Why I have no patience
1. There are other more important things in life to be done.

2. Nothing we do now is very important. Harris said when he came home from school today, "I wonder what will come after people." I asked him to explain. "First there were dinosaurs, then animals, then people. I wish I could not die so that I could see what's next." I told him that's the way it goes.

3. I wonder if there is a drug to clear your mind. I should call Pat (my therapist) and ask him if he could refer me to a good psychiatrist.

4. I am seeing through people. It bothers me.

5. My tongue gets all thick and twisted when I try to read books to the children.

6. When I read, I'm having trouble gleaning the message. Words just seem too concrete to be taken seriously.

7. I cannot comprehend who is making all those television commercials.

8. How am I going to keep myself on the ground? I have too many things to do.

9. I have not the art of conversation. I cannot understand what people are talking about.

10. I am having severe anxiety attacks when I see someone I know and I know they want to say things to me and I don't know what to say back and I get all embarrassed and just say yes yes to them but I don't know or understand what the significance of what they are saying is.

11. My mind feels like I have stuck in the incoming/outgoing syntaxes.

12. Maybe I'll call Pat tomorrow. I am all sweaty just thinking about it. Just too nervous and tense.

13.. I wish I could get away for awhile.

14. Cris says it is just enlightenment. It seemed to help for a few hours - passing it off as such. I really don't think there is much virtue in experiencing what this life is to me.

15. People are always so rigid and expect such rigidity in return.

16. People expect me to be/act/do as they have expected/explained/cajoled me into feeling/acting/doing. I cannot comprehend what is expected. Well maybe comprehend the wants/wishes/desires, but I cannot put it into action. I cannot act.

17. I cannot see beyond my glass cage.

18. Other people do not understand and are not aware of their blinds. I am all alone in myself and by myself all alone amongst all these others who seem to expect reality as it is.

19. I have lost the ability to explain in detail what it is I see.

20. Cris always shows everything to people when they come to our house. I ridicule his show and tell.

21. I find myself acting in these roles also. I find myself a hypocrite.

===============================================

I have not written in a very long time. I have thought about writing, but I am so busy trying to not do anything and trying to relax and trying to do everything. So busy. I do this every summer. I am so happy to be alone. I sometimes stay up too late, then sleep until noon, and then when Anthony comes home, I regret the lost hours alone I could have spent being alone and quiet.

I hate the heat. I hate the dark greens of summer. I don't want to go outside. I sit in the basement with the curtains half open. I watch the neighbors play, talk, work, mow. Our grass grows tall. Our weeds grow freely. Our mulch floats away in the summer downpours. I read books long into the night, watching the frogs on my windows.

I have read this journal entry several times this summer. Thinking, maybe I should write it, maybe I should skip it. Skip it? no. It is like a list of me. No really - exactly me and how I feel still today - except for the trapped angry part. I have a wonderful husband, and nine months of the year, I actually interact with other people.

This one fact --> I had spent six years isolated with Cris since being tossed out of my parent's home on December 28, 1979 (the date is burned in my memory). Cris strictly controlled my friendships and my outside-of-the-house-activities. During those years, I held several part-time jobs, had three children, maintained a friendship with 2 people - Scott and Hallie. I was allowed to visit the library once a week. I checked out vegetarian cookbooks, books about building your own home, and every book about religion and philosophy.

In 1985, near the end of my horrible isolation, I invited Jehovah Witnesses into my home. They came every week to see me, I made them cookies and tea. I spent hours completing the "homework" they assigned me, and preparing "questions" to ask them. Eventually, they said I was required to join them outside the home. I attended one strange women and "scary well-behaved children" study group. I also took my children, properly attired in the "scary perfect child" way, to a Sunday "service". Faced with the prospect of actually joining this "Stepford Wife Community", I realized I couldn't keep pretending. Shamefully, I admitted that although their logic seemed sound, but I just didn't believe in the whole "god"thing. Details, details. They told me they couldn't hang out with me anymore.

I have been thinking a lot about these "lists" in my journal. How interesting to see how aware I was of my difference. I see how attending MCAD, with other people. Other people that had no interest in controlling me - other than assigning projects, papers and readings. This sudden interaction between me and others created a crisis in my mind. Cris had been controlling me. He used the "insanity" card on me. He used the "enlightenment" card. None of the labels he threw at me struck me as quite right. 

I realize that I keep repeating it, but I actually raised my children to recognize others as "different" than us. We were special, better than others. 

I see in these lists my deep depression: "I really don't think there is much virtue in experiencing what this life is to me." I see my understanding that I was outside of others: "..wondering if I see things my own way..." I was trying so hard to escape the disaster of my hellish marriage or wishing that Cris would stop having affairs. I saw the outside world of others that had no children. The students were younger than I was and living a life I never had. I watched with amazement and envy. I had crushes on attractive younger students. I enjoyed my studies - so much more interesting to learn with others than while alone with no one to clarify or discuss new ideas.

I thank Phoebe for gifting me these journals. I can look back and remember. I look back and remember and realize what struggles I have had to become the woman I am today. The wife that enjoys being a traditional housewife. The mother that loves and helps her adult children unconditionally. The teacher that teaches best one-on-one. The grandma that reels in happiness when her grandchildren are around. I love being alive. I love me.