The search for meaning in my life
November 2nd 2006 09:57
I am sitting here smelling the beautiful, reassuring, and slightly invigorating
(or would be invigorating if it weren't 3am, lol) scent of the Body Shop vanilla
lotion I got earlier today. I finally decided it was high time for me to get some
more lotion. I got some of the wild oats lavender lotion that's ok, then got
some lavender essential oil from WO with plans to mix it in with the Body
Shop unscented lotion, but it proved to be too strong. So I ended up getting a
bottle of unscented and a bottle of vanilla from BS.... and am very happy to
have some decent lotion again, god. I can't believe I went so many months
without it. If someone wanted to make me extremely happy they could get
any of the companies that have discontinued the lavender and milk lotions
that I used to love to make them again, but I suppose that won't happen
(damn corporate america!!!) so I will have to adjust to my vanilla lotion, which
is, I suppose, better than no vanilla lotion. One more note about corporate
America, the vanilla and unscented now come in 6 ounce bottles instead of 8
ounce, bottles that are considerably smaller than the old size, for the SAME
PRICE of a rather overpriced $12. What can you do though? It's the only
decent lotion around. Oh well. The saleswoman was very nice and very patient
with me too, and that counts for a lot. Took ages for me to make up my
mind.
Stuart took me in to Portland a little after 1:30. Got there about 2:30. Not
quite sure how that is possible actually given that it takes 30 min to get into
Portland, but anyway. We might not have left till like 1:45. Anyway. Dropped
me off at Wild Oats and I got my stuff very quickly and decided to eat lunch
on the bus so as to catch the 3pm bus to the mall and be able to have an
hour there. Was so quick that I was ten min early for the bus, but it was a
BEAUTIFUL day, 65 freaking degrees out !!! (its been in low 50s) and sunny. I
danced in an area by the bus waiting area, an alleyway I had never noticed, oh
it felt so good. The sun and beautiful area on my shoulders, my body, my
face. Moving through space so easily and elegantly. Dancing, under the right
circumstances, makes me feel more alive than anything else in the world, it
makes me feel more free and unencumbered. I love, love getting into a state
of mind where I don't care about the people around me and I'm just
temporarily drunk on the world - wandering around, spinning around,
dancing and finding joy in just being outside and in town, usually singing
whatever song is on the radio at the top of my lungs.
So the bus came, went to the mall etc. Got a Chocolixir at Godiva - ice,
chocolate powder and choco pieces - have been meanign to get one for ages
- never did because I always got a smoothie instead, now that smoothies
have gone KAPUT i got the chocolixir - it was decent but not great. very
chocolately, very COLD, too cold almost actually. Chocolately, but the flavor
wasn't quite intense enough for me, and it was kinda cold lol. Still least I have
my curiousisty satisfied now.
Went to lotion place, Lindt, Godiva and preztel bite place, all my favorites
which was good. Pretzel bites werent as good as last time, your first time is
always the best. Still good though.
The Maine Mall is a million times more pleasant than the mall I went to at
school outside of Baltimore, I will tell you that again. I love that Maine is a
small enough place that at least in southern Maine, at least around Portland
for a pretty good radius, you can say to somebody "I'm going to the mall" and
have them know exactly what you mean, exactly what mall and where it is -
because there is only one mall of any real substance in southern Maine - the
Maine Mall in South Portland, the "main mall," lol. Whereas in Towson, well,
true most people would assume you were going to the towson mall if you
were going, but there was also like owing mills and white marsh and I cant
even remember the names of all the towns, but probably at least 3 or 4 or
more really big malls of equal size or bigger (white marsh is bigger and really
scary!) within 10 min to 40 min away. So there's not as much as a community
center, if you could ever call, if you would ever want to call, a mall a
community center.
I dont generally like malls - but maine mall is small enough that you dont
have to walk all over the place or have trouble finding anything - you can
literally just start walking and what you're looking for will appear soon
enough - its not crowded - yet it has a *really* good selection of stores,
everything you could want, really. the food court has good places, but isn't a
zoo, god the towson mall food court was my idea of hell on earth it was so
big and loud!
I miss a lot of things about school though; I have been thinking about that
lately. Remembering. Remembering that even when times were bad I still had
so much to look forward to, to be glad about, so many more resources,
people to talk to, stuff to do, things to be happy about. It was both far worse
and far better than my current life, but isn't that what life is all about, the
extremes? The boringness, the vanillaness and nothinhness of my life now
has got to be worse than most anything else I can imagine. Yet I don't seem
very motivated to try to change it, which is rather troubling to say the least.
What is even more troubling is that very lack of things to look forward to that
I find here. The other night, Halloween night, I was in town and something
upset me. I tend to have a habit of once I get upset over one thing, it opens
the floodgates for me to be upset over every single problem I have rolling
around in my head that Ive been trying to avoid. These emotions engulfed me
and I had a really hard time getting out. I started thinking about how lonely I
was and wondering if I really mattered to anyone, even despite having
repeated assurances of love from my family (but sometimes that isn't enough)
and despite being reasonably well liked in college and having made a few
friends. But everything seemed fake. How do you know when you have truly
made a connection with someone, when you have a true friendship, as
opposed to people just acting friendly? Not that I don't love friendly people
and carrying on small talk with them just for the sake of talking to someone,
because I do, but my heart yearns for more than that. I want to be with
people, I want to have all the friends I never had when I was a kid growing up,
I want to experience the social side of life. I have no idea what that would be
like but it feels like it is the missing ingredient in my life -- junk food is great
but can only take you so far and I am seriously worried for the quality of my
life if the only thing that can make me happy is food. I am glad food can
make me happy just the same but it would be very nice to have more than
that.
I was thinking earlier about how you know you have a connection with
someone.... while talking to two of my aunts on the phone. Well, I called one
and had a long convo with her, and then almost as soon as I had hung up, my
other aunt on the opposite side of the country called. Which was unusual,
people don't usually call me, I call them. So that was kind of nice even if it
was a lot of phone at once. I realized after I talked to my aunt Loie, though,
that maybe this was what connection was. It is talking to someone and having
time stop while you're doing that, it is being able to bask in the warmth and
comfort of their voice, it is not being scared while you are talking to them, it
is a feeling of immunity against all that normally troubles you while you are
with them. It is a feeling of hope and a feeling that something in your heart is
being temporarily filled up. The missing piece is, for a precious few minutes,
there again. It is feeling good about yourself, feeling more in sync with the
universe, feeling you matter. Feeling worth in yourself. It cuts through the
loneliness like a knife.
That is what a good conversation can do. That is why I crave connections with
people so much. But the feeling is alas only temporary. Almost as soon as I
hang up or leave the person the feeling of loneliness and of being cut off and
isolated comes over me again. Maybe I am happy for several minutes, as I
frantically try to go over every word of the conversation in my head and
commit it to memory and try as hard as I can, always in vain but never lacking
in effort, to get it through my thick skull that it is possible to feel connected
to people, to store the memory in my heart for later times when I will need it.
I have a diary going back two or three years of these moments in an effort to
PROVE to myself that I have something to live for. And it's really discouraging
to me that after all this effort, I still find myself feeling basically disconnected
and unsatisfied with life. That I find myself, with some change in degree but
not nearly enough, just about as lonely , isolated and desperate as I was eight
years ago at the start of high school and before. Things are supposed to
change in all that time, aren't they? It's astounding to me sometimes, and not
in a good way, to read diary entries from two or three years back and see
them echoing the same painful sentiments and desperation that I still feel. To
see that nothing has really changed. I have a label for it now - Asperger's
Syndrome - I have made a few more friends, I am little more comfortable
socially, I have accepted to a greater degree my outsider status and am a little
more comfortable with myself - but it's not nearly enough. I'm still on the
outside.
At school my feelings of social isolation were often more painful and intense
because I was constantly surrounded by people my age who I would compare
myself to, and believe me I did no end of this! But on the other hand these
feelings were also buffered by my occasional social success and all of the
opportunities I had to attempt to be successful socially (hope springs eternal,
in other words) and by my connections and good relationships with several
teachers who I could confide in. I had a schedule, I had things to do, I had a
routine, I had a purpose in life - to be a college student. To do work. This is
how I defined myself and where I got my sense of worth, small as it was. I had
a life that, while often seeming excessively difficult, seemed worth living,
because of the amount of joys I had to balance out all that was difficult.
Whereas here I have nothing to look forward to, none of the joys I had in
college, no routine, no purpose and it freaking scares me half to death. I also
have very few of the difficulties I had in college, but also none of the joys, and
I am starting to think that it really isn't worth the trade-off.
I treasured every word in college. Every word of every good conversation I
ever had with anyone. The middle of night conversations with Alison in the
computer lab, the conversations with the security guards or the librarians,
every interaction with a teacher that I liked, every bit of small talk waged with
a classmate while standing in line at the post office or in the cafe, with the
girl behind the counter at the bookstore or the occasional rare conversation
with a hallmate, the occasional encounters when someone would actually
come up to me to start a conversation (that usually started with "What are you
listening to?", ha) the guy who asked me "don't you spend a fortune on
batteries?" referring to my always present Walkman, even the group of boys
who apolgized for shouting incoherently at me while drunk, because they
cared. Every conversation with a teacher. Not that it wasn't hard - walking
back and forth the halls of Van Meter for ten, twenty minutes, trying to get
the nerve to knock on a teacher's door, fighting the feelings of insecurity and
anxiety and fear when I started conversations with people, trying to figure out
what to say and how long the conversation should go on for and what I could
possibly do to make myself appear more acceptable, what was needed to
carry on a conversation with someone. The self hatred and loneliness as I
watched others interact so easily and be surrounded by so many friends, that
was present for sure all four years I was there. Trying to break through those
feelings to make an effort to connect with people so I could kill those feelings
of loneliness.
The wonderful back and forth of a conversation - how many people do you
know who simply treasure being part of a conversation? Well, I should be
more specific here. I don't enjoy arguments, shouting fests, anything tense or
unpredictable. I don't enjoy talking to uncommunicative or unfriendly people.
But I thrive on friendly, open, warm people. Conversation with them is like a
miraculous game of ping pong, where the ball goes back and forth and I am
amazed that I am able to keep it in motion. It doesn't matter so much what
we talk about, but I treasure the warmth in their voice, the smile on their face,
the brief sense of connection. I soak up the feeling of someone caring about
me.
Yet, these are crumbs, mere crumbs, and how long can a person exist on
mere crumbs? Isn't 22 years enough? What is there to say it will ever change
in the future and why should I live a life doomed to the kind of isolation and
desperation I have felt and struggled boldly with for the past twenty plus
years? There needs to be a reason, that's all I can say.
Without a purpose in life, without something to do with my time, my life, my
intellect, without a way to connect and be with others, without a way to make
meaning in my life, I am just a sack of flesh and bones whittling away the
days on the calender, and I CANNOT *STAND* that. (I try not to think about
it.) But it is the truth. The truth is I spend all my time looking for ways to kill
time and for things to do where I can not be thinking about the truth of my
life . Whenever I start to think of anything i can do to make it better or change
it, not that there are many options or any sure thing, i panic and stop
thinking about it. which i realize is bad but i just do and it feels too scary to
do that i dont want to feel scared i want to feel safe but wasnt it some wise
man who was quoted as saying something like " but in the end, safety is the
most dangerous thing of all?"
I have things to offer the world. I am aware enough to realize that. I have a
sense of humor, a positive and upbeat personality when I can possibly
manage it, infectious enthuiasm again whenever I can, a gentle personality
that genuinely cares about people and aims to help them whenever I can. I am
intelligent and analytical. I am loyal and try hard at whatever I do...for the
most part. There is so much I want to experience in the world. It wouldn't
take much to make me happy - just feeling like I was part of something
would be enough. Just feeling like I mattered, like I had some purpose no
matter how small. Just having a friend or two, a real friend. It wouldn't take
much. And I don't mean to toot my own horn here, because I seldom do this,
but these are things others have told me about myself, especially lately, and I
am frustrated at realizing that perhaps if the playing field was evened a little,
if I didn't have some of the difficulties that I have due to AS or whatever else,
that I might have the potential to be a very satisfied person and to be able to
give something of myself and make a difference to the world.
I offer the analogy of being in a boat. Boats seem to be useful analogies in
many ways. Imagine perhaps that you are in a small, shaky boat in very rough
waters and are getting tossed around a lot. Or even a bigger, more stable
boat in rough choppy waters, getting tossed about. You have been lost at sea
for a long time. Up ahead, though, you see an island and know that you can
make it to that island; it's just a matter of time. You have everything you need
to survive in the boat, you have everything you need to lead a tolerable
existance until you get to the island, where you will be safe and, of course,
have a far better life than you did on the shaky boat. So you weather the
bumps and bruises of life on the boat relatively calmly, knowing there will be
an end to your suffering soon. Imagine conversely, though, that you are on
the same boat, getting battered by the waves, for many years with no island,
no end, in sight. You are scared and tired and every little bump feels
enormous. You can't weather the bumps because you have nothing to look
forward to, no reason to put forth the energy and effort to be able to weather
the bumps.
I am in the boat with no island in sight. And I am afraid I am running out of
rations.
(or would be invigorating if it weren't 3am, lol) scent of the Body Shop vanilla
lotion I got earlier today. I finally decided it was high time for me to get some
more lotion. I got some of the wild oats lavender lotion that's ok, then got
some lavender essential oil from WO with plans to mix it in with the Body
Shop unscented lotion, but it proved to be too strong. So I ended up getting a
bottle of unscented and a bottle of vanilla from BS.... and am very happy to
have some decent lotion again, god. I can't believe I went so many months
any of the companies that have discontinued the lavender and milk lotions
that I used to love to make them again, but I suppose that won't happen
(damn corporate america!!!) so I will have to adjust to my vanilla lotion, which
is, I suppose, better than no vanilla lotion. One more note about corporate
America, the vanilla and unscented now come in 6 ounce bottles instead of 8
ounce, bottles that are considerably smaller than the old size, for the SAME
PRICE of a rather overpriced $12. What can you do though? It's the only
decent lotion around. Oh well. The saleswoman was very nice and very patient
with me too, and that counts for a lot. Took ages for me to make up my
mind.
Stuart took me in to Portland a little after 1:30. Got there about 2:30. Not
quite sure how that is possible actually given that it takes 30 min to get into
Portland, but anyway. We might not have left till like 1:45. Anyway. Dropped
on the bus so as to catch the 3pm bus to the mall and be able to have an
hour there. Was so quick that I was ten min early for the bus, but it was a
BEAUTIFUL day, 65 freaking degrees out !!! (its been in low 50s) and sunny. I
danced in an area by the bus waiting area, an alleyway I had never noticed, oh
it felt so good. The sun and beautiful area on my shoulders, my body, my
face. Moving through space so easily and elegantly. Dancing, under the right
circumstances, makes me feel more alive than anything else in the world, it
makes me feel more free and unencumbered. I love, love getting into a state
of mind where I don't care about the people around me and I'm just
temporarily drunk on the world - wandering around, spinning around,
dancing and finding joy in just being outside and in town, usually singing
whatever song is on the radio at the top of my lungs.
So the bus came, went to the mall etc. Got a Chocolixir at Godiva - ice,
chocolate powder and choco pieces - have been meanign to get one for ages
- never did because I always got a smoothie instead, now that smoothies
have gone KAPUT i got the chocolixir - it was decent but not great. very
chocolately, very COLD, too cold almost actually. Chocolately, but the flavor
wasn't quite intense enough for me, and it was kinda cold lol. Still least I have
my curiousisty satisfied now.
Went to lotion place, Lindt, Godiva and preztel bite place, all my favorites
which was good. Pretzel bites werent as good as last time, your first time is
always the best. Still good though.
The Maine Mall is a million times more pleasant than the mall I went to at
school outside of Baltimore, I will tell you that again. I love that Maine is a
small enough place that at least in southern Maine, at least around Portland
for a pretty good radius, you can say to somebody "I'm going to the mall" and
have them know exactly what you mean, exactly what mall and where it is -
because there is only one mall of any real substance in southern Maine - the
Maine Mall in South Portland, the "main mall," lol. Whereas in Towson, well,
true most people would assume you were going to the towson mall if you
were going, but there was also like owing mills and white marsh and I cant
even remember the names of all the towns, but probably at least 3 or 4 or
more really big malls of equal size or bigger (white marsh is bigger and really
scary!) within 10 min to 40 min away. So there's not as much as a community
center, if you could ever call, if you would ever want to call, a mall a
community center.
I dont generally like malls - but maine mall is small enough that you dont
have to walk all over the place or have trouble finding anything - you can
literally just start walking and what you're looking for will appear soon
enough - its not crowded - yet it has a *really* good selection of stores,
everything you could want, really. the food court has good places, but isn't a
zoo, god the towson mall food court was my idea of hell on earth it was so
big and loud!
I miss a lot of things about school though; I have been thinking about that
lately. Remembering. Remembering that even when times were bad I still had
so much to look forward to, to be glad about, so many more resources,
people to talk to, stuff to do, things to be happy about. It was both far worse
and far better than my current life, but isn't that what life is all about, the
extremes? The boringness, the vanillaness and nothinhness of my life now
has got to be worse than most anything else I can imagine. Yet I don't seem
very motivated to try to change it, which is rather troubling to say the least.
What is even more troubling is that very lack of things to look forward to that
I find here. The other night, Halloween night, I was in town and something
upset me. I tend to have a habit of once I get upset over one thing, it opens
the floodgates for me to be upset over every single problem I have rolling
around in my head that Ive been trying to avoid. These emotions engulfed me
and I had a really hard time getting out. I started thinking about how lonely I
was and wondering if I really mattered to anyone, even despite having
repeated assurances of love from my family (but sometimes that isn't enough)
and despite being reasonably well liked in college and having made a few
friends. But everything seemed fake. How do you know when you have truly
made a connection with someone, when you have a true friendship, as
opposed to people just acting friendly? Not that I don't love friendly people
and carrying on small talk with them just for the sake of talking to someone,
because I do, but my heart yearns for more than that. I want to be with
people, I want to have all the friends I never had when I was a kid growing up,
I want to experience the social side of life. I have no idea what that would be
like but it feels like it is the missing ingredient in my life -- junk food is great
but can only take you so far and I am seriously worried for the quality of my
life if the only thing that can make me happy is food. I am glad food can
make me happy just the same but it would be very nice to have more than
that.
I was thinking earlier about how you know you have a connection with
someone.... while talking to two of my aunts on the phone. Well, I called one
and had a long convo with her, and then almost as soon as I had hung up, my
other aunt on the opposite side of the country called. Which was unusual,
people don't usually call me, I call them. So that was kind of nice even if it
was a lot of phone at once. I realized after I talked to my aunt Loie, though,
that maybe this was what connection was. It is talking to someone and having
time stop while you're doing that, it is being able to bask in the warmth and
comfort of their voice, it is not being scared while you are talking to them, it
is a feeling of immunity against all that normally troubles you while you are
with them. It is a feeling of hope and a feeling that something in your heart is
being temporarily filled up. The missing piece is, for a precious few minutes,
there again. It is feeling good about yourself, feeling more in sync with the
universe, feeling you matter. Feeling worth in yourself. It cuts through the
loneliness like a knife.
That is what a good conversation can do. That is why I crave connections with
people so much. But the feeling is alas only temporary. Almost as soon as I
hang up or leave the person the feeling of loneliness and of being cut off and
isolated comes over me again. Maybe I am happy for several minutes, as I
frantically try to go over every word of the conversation in my head and
commit it to memory and try as hard as I can, always in vain but never lacking
in effort, to get it through my thick skull that it is possible to feel connected
to people, to store the memory in my heart for later times when I will need it.
I have a diary going back two or three years of these moments in an effort to
PROVE to myself that I have something to live for. And it's really discouraging
to me that after all this effort, I still find myself feeling basically disconnected
and unsatisfied with life. That I find myself, with some change in degree but
not nearly enough, just about as lonely , isolated and desperate as I was eight
years ago at the start of high school and before. Things are supposed to
change in all that time, aren't they? It's astounding to me sometimes, and not
in a good way, to read diary entries from two or three years back and see
them echoing the same painful sentiments and desperation that I still feel. To
see that nothing has really changed. I have a label for it now - Asperger's
Syndrome - I have made a few more friends, I am little more comfortable
socially, I have accepted to a greater degree my outsider status and am a little
more comfortable with myself - but it's not nearly enough. I'm still on the
outside.
At school my feelings of social isolation were often more painful and intense
because I was constantly surrounded by people my age who I would compare
myself to, and believe me I did no end of this! But on the other hand these
feelings were also buffered by my occasional social success and all of the
opportunities I had to attempt to be successful socially (hope springs eternal,
in other words) and by my connections and good relationships with several
teachers who I could confide in. I had a schedule, I had things to do, I had a
routine, I had a purpose in life - to be a college student. To do work. This is
how I defined myself and where I got my sense of worth, small as it was. I had
a life that, while often seeming excessively difficult, seemed worth living,
because of the amount of joys I had to balance out all that was difficult.
Whereas here I have nothing to look forward to, none of the joys I had in
college, no routine, no purpose and it freaking scares me half to death. I also
have very few of the difficulties I had in college, but also none of the joys, and
I am starting to think that it really isn't worth the trade-off.
I treasured every word in college. Every word of every good conversation I
ever had with anyone. The middle of night conversations with Alison in the
computer lab, the conversations with the security guards or the librarians,
every interaction with a teacher that I liked, every bit of small talk waged with
a classmate while standing in line at the post office or in the cafe, with the
girl behind the counter at the bookstore or the occasional rare conversation
with a hallmate, the occasional encounters when someone would actually
come up to me to start a conversation (that usually started with "What are you
listening to?", ha) the guy who asked me "don't you spend a fortune on
batteries?" referring to my always present Walkman, even the group of boys
who apolgized for shouting incoherently at me while drunk, because they
cared. Every conversation with a teacher. Not that it wasn't hard - walking
back and forth the halls of Van Meter for ten, twenty minutes, trying to get
the nerve to knock on a teacher's door, fighting the feelings of insecurity and
anxiety and fear when I started conversations with people, trying to figure out
what to say and how long the conversation should go on for and what I could
possibly do to make myself appear more acceptable, what was needed to
carry on a conversation with someone. The self hatred and loneliness as I
watched others interact so easily and be surrounded by so many friends, that
was present for sure all four years I was there. Trying to break through those
feelings to make an effort to connect with people so I could kill those feelings
of loneliness.
The wonderful back and forth of a conversation - how many people do you
know who simply treasure being part of a conversation? Well, I should be
more specific here. I don't enjoy arguments, shouting fests, anything tense or
unpredictable. I don't enjoy talking to uncommunicative or unfriendly people.
But I thrive on friendly, open, warm people. Conversation with them is like a
miraculous game of ping pong, where the ball goes back and forth and I am
amazed that I am able to keep it in motion. It doesn't matter so much what
we talk about, but I treasure the warmth in their voice, the smile on their face,
the brief sense of connection. I soak up the feeling of someone caring about
me.
Yet, these are crumbs, mere crumbs, and how long can a person exist on
mere crumbs? Isn't 22 years enough? What is there to say it will ever change
in the future and why should I live a life doomed to the kind of isolation and
desperation I have felt and struggled boldly with for the past twenty plus
years? There needs to be a reason, that's all I can say.
Without a purpose in life, without something to do with my time, my life, my
intellect, without a way to connect and be with others, without a way to make
meaning in my life, I am just a sack of flesh and bones whittling away the
days on the calender, and I CANNOT *STAND* that. (I try not to think about
it.) But it is the truth. The truth is I spend all my time looking for ways to kill
time and for things to do where I can not be thinking about the truth of my
life . Whenever I start to think of anything i can do to make it better or change
it, not that there are many options or any sure thing, i panic and stop
thinking about it. which i realize is bad but i just do and it feels too scary to
do that i dont want to feel scared i want to feel safe but wasnt it some wise
man who was quoted as saying something like " but in the end, safety is the
most dangerous thing of all?"
I have things to offer the world. I am aware enough to realize that. I have a
sense of humor, a positive and upbeat personality when I can possibly
manage it, infectious enthuiasm again whenever I can, a gentle personality
that genuinely cares about people and aims to help them whenever I can. I am
intelligent and analytical. I am loyal and try hard at whatever I do...for the
most part. There is so much I want to experience in the world. It wouldn't
take much to make me happy - just feeling like I was part of something
would be enough. Just feeling like I mattered, like I had some purpose no
matter how small. Just having a friend or two, a real friend. It wouldn't take
much. And I don't mean to toot my own horn here, because I seldom do this,
but these are things others have told me about myself, especially lately, and I
am frustrated at realizing that perhaps if the playing field was evened a little,
if I didn't have some of the difficulties that I have due to AS or whatever else,
that I might have the potential to be a very satisfied person and to be able to
give something of myself and make a difference to the world.
I offer the analogy of being in a boat. Boats seem to be useful analogies in
many ways. Imagine perhaps that you are in a small, shaky boat in very rough
waters and are getting tossed around a lot. Or even a bigger, more stable
boat in rough choppy waters, getting tossed about. You have been lost at sea
for a long time. Up ahead, though, you see an island and know that you can
make it to that island; it's just a matter of time. You have everything you need
to survive in the boat, you have everything you need to lead a tolerable
existance until you get to the island, where you will be safe and, of course,
have a far better life than you did on the shaky boat. So you weather the
bumps and bruises of life on the boat relatively calmly, knowing there will be
an end to your suffering soon. Imagine conversely, though, that you are on
the same boat, getting battered by the waves, for many years with no island,
no end, in sight. You are scared and tired and every little bump feels
enormous. You can't weather the bumps because you have nothing to look
forward to, no reason to put forth the energy and effort to be able to weather
the bumps.
I am in the boat with no island in sight. And I am afraid I am running out of
rations.
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Comment by Lily
Ars Poetica
'I have things to offer the world.'
yes you do, you offered so much in what i just read, that i am blown away; heart resonating -- for that i am truly appreciative for every word you shared..
i will be back to comment; for now; i'm just glad to meet you
~Lily
Comment by KateG
Asperger's Island
Thanks so much for the comment on my blog. I hadnt gotten a comment in a while, I write too much, lol. Sorry the formattimg of the entry was all messed up. I appreciate you reading it and commenting. I hope to see you back there! I like the pictures in your diary.
Kate