I can see now that I’m not exactly the most emotionally-stable person. If I were updating you regularly, you guys would know it too. Let me tell you a story.
Twice a week, my mornings begin on the campus track, under a great, open sky. Several times, it’s even been sunny and warm. But on these track mornings, we run here, we run there, we stop and stretch. We stop and slump. We stop and practice un-slumping. We slump and greet each other. We stand tall and great each other. We ground ourselves downwards for the backside and upwards for the front side of our bodies. Our heads touch the sky. We run more. We walk briskly. And as I run, I see the gulls and crows and pigeons and some other birds. I see the clouds and feel the sky. I breathe the air and feel amazing. That’s life. UP.
Let me tell you a story. Four times a week, I am now getting paid a minimum wage to help tutor Accounting 1 students. This can range from nobody needing my help, in which case I can do my own homework, or certain people needing intense help. I am a Helper by nature. Shyness and asperger are both irrelevant if I am trying to help someone. It’s awkward when I don’t have the words or I know what I want to say but can’t form it into a sentence. It’s hard to think of other ways of explaining a concept someone is struggling with. But I whip out my computer and search online for many explanations and then find the words to string it all together, sometimes. Sometimes I am able to find a way of explaining something and the person has a lightbulb moment. Those moments are wonderful. UP.
At other times, it can take me a long time to remember how to work out a certain type of problem. But I am happy so long as I don’t mislead or give wrong information to anyone. I have helped people come to correct answers several times now, so that is really, really cool. UP.
I had six combined hours of tutoring time where nobody was asking for my help, and I was able to do my Accounting 2 homework. When it came time for my Accounting 2 class, I had studied so much that I was able to do ALL of the in-class assignments without any real problems! I felt quite amazed. UP.
Here’s another story. I am taking a Beginning Piano class. It meets many times during the week. The chords are hard for me and the posture is something I work on, but I already know how to read notes and count rhythm so a lot of class is very … well, boring. So last class period, a student with a guide-dog-for-the-blind entered the room and asked to join. He asked to have a student who could sit with him all semester and help him stay on track, because he can’t read the music. I volunteered. First of all, his dog was incredibly adorable and sweet. Second of all, I was having too much time on my hands during class anyway (I’ve already practiced the book for many lessons ahead of where we’re currently at). So helping him starting today during class, and it was very interesting for me. He taught me how to find the same chord up along the keyboard easily by knowing the number of white notes between the left and right hand. I helped him learn the G7 chord we were working on in class. He’ll just have to learn the melodies by ear, but I could assist his learning the two chords, at least. And I sit right by his awesome dog, who sleeps the whole class period. UP.
The story is going to start to change soon. I’m just warning you.
So I bought a cheapo guitar the other day. I can’t justify the purchase but I’ve been playing it every single day since then and having great fun. I became obsessed with guitar again after hearing the song, “Burning House” by Cam. The piano music for it cost money, but the guitar tab was free online. Of course, the guitar cost more than the piano music would have…but anyway. Now I’m learning “Closer” by Travis on the guitar and it’s lovely. My mom is also teaching me the fingerings for alto recorder via FaceTime, which is challenging. But I’ve been meaning to do that for years. She calls this time period “another of my manic music phases”. UH OH.
I wish I could begin to tell you another story, but this one is so confusing, I just don’t know what to make of it. There’s a story about my boyfriend and myself, and maybe even his mother. I don’t know where he and I stand at the moment. I’m going to use some buzzwords and say my “love tank” is running on empty. In other words, he’s not SHOWING me love in the way I am capable of FEELING loved. I believe it is happening the other way around, as well. Sometimes he comes home from work and I’m too uncertain and awaiting and don’t make any first moves. I just wait. What am I waiting for? Him to sweep me up off my feet and spin me around and say how wonderful it is to see me again?
Life was different when we lived in the apartment with his old roommate. Our lives were different. There were times when I came home and went to the grocery store and tried to cook parts of meals for our dinner. He would try to arrange his schedule to come home earlier and he’d help with other parts of the meals. He frequently played piano. I did homework and what else did I do? Play with Curie the cat? I vacuumed a lot.
Now, what is going on? He comes home and he always greets me but I am not always initially warm toward him. I feel a “waiting” inside, like waiting to see what the rest of the evening will be like, waiting to see what’s up. One time, I was smack in the middle of re-writing some guitar chords for a song that someone else had written out incorrectly, and he came in and immediately started to read to me my Accounting textbook and ask me questions about it — which is awesome and helpful from one standpoint, but it wasn’t what I was doing right then and there — I was finishing a personal project. So I don’t know, I don’t think I handled it very well, just trying to get us to go downstairs and help his mother with dinner because I couldn’t handle trying to suddenly switch my brain over and think about Accounting. But then I spent the rest of the evening worrying if I’d disappointed him or something.
But then there are also the times when he comes home, and he always greets me, and frankly I am not always warm toward him, and he spends most of the evening talking/discussing/debating/arguing politics with his mom. Or they watch the TV downstairs together and they’re both on their electronic devices, like she’ll be on her laptop doing research and he’ll either be on his laptop or reading news and stuff off of his phone. And I just go upstairs and listen to “Welcome to Night Vale” or music. Or now, I play guitar up here.
I do join them a lot, for various TV shows, like we are in the process of watching all of the Doc Martin episodes from start to finish. I don’t mean to say I always avoid them but sometimes, I really can’t handle the talking any more.
I’m handling my homesickness by talking with my mom over the telephone nearly every single day now. Sometimes I get to hear my dad’s hilarious background commentary. For example, yesterday I made my mom listen to me struggle through an easy Bach piece on piano. I must have been on speakerphone because at the end, my dad said, “Bach is rolling over in his grave!” But it’s SO funny when he says these things because he can’t keep a straight face even as he’s saying it, so he was cracking himself up while trying to say it to me. I love my parents so much.
My boyfriend is meeting me for my nighttime class each week. That’s pretty amazingly awesome. I was too afraid to take the class, and it’s across the city from the usual campus, but he said he’d meet me there after class and we’d bus home together. It’s been working. I was 15 minutes late to class last time, since I’m still very anxious about attending the night class, but at least I made it.
So I haven’t been spelling it out for you very well, but I get down sometimes. Just down. I’m not suicidal right now. I’m not even particularly self-injurious, with the exception of a very shit non-communication that took place when my bf got home late from work last night. I worked through it in a healthy way, though. I took care of some chores downstairs, thus making myself available should he wish to find me, and then going into the bathroom, closing the door, putting in some earbuds and jamming out to a current favorite song fairly loudly and with much dancing. I painted some of my fingernails between dancing. By the time he sought me out, he found me perfectly happy and having a personal dance/nail party and he was creeping in with a very anxious look on his face like he was so worried about whatever it was that had happened. I don’t know. We are just kind of shit for communication, but a lot of it is I’m finding myself reverting back to OLD PATTERNS OF BEHAVIOR AND WITHDRAWING. That ain’t fair to anyone, and it’s not adult, rational, assertive behavior, and it’s not fair to ME. So it’s not what I want.
So it turns out that I misunderstood but one of my old TaskRabbits actually asked me out on a date like a month or two ago. At the time, I just responded letting him know who he was speaking with — I thought he’d written to the wrong innerdragon! But I later clarified, it was me! So that’s flattering but, I’m still into my boyfriend. I know we’re in a phase right now that’s going to require some killer hard work to pull our shit out of, but I still think it’s worth it. If that scale tips, well, then suck. I hope the scale doesn’t tip.
But the biggest downer in my life right now is the communication shit my boyfriend and I are going through. He sounded pretty amazed when last night, finally deciding to take some clonazepam, I was like, do you even like me? Do you even like spending time with me? Because I can’t tell. And long story short, that’s something we’re going to have to work on, because he does like me, of course, and want to be with me, but he’s going to have to learn how to show it in the ways I can FEEL again, because this ain’t working for me right now. And I told him we’re going to need to set aside some evenings for just reconnecting, like going on a walk-and-talk together or stuff like that, where we can just talk, because I feel disconnected from him, just waiting and wondering what the hell is going on. I was upset the other day when his mom was asking him over dinner about some training he’d done that day, and I was completely in the dark on that. So he had obviously told her about it and not me. The woes of living with your SO’s mother, let me tell you. And I was really upset about it and then…. I realized, I had talked on the phone with my own mom for like an hour that same day, and she knew all KINDS of things about my day that my bf has no idea about…. So then it was a little harder to blame him for that oversight. 😉
Anyway. Stay strong. Stay attending the classes. One of these days, I’m going to have to do that OTHER class’s homework — the one I’ve been avoiding because my book didn’t arrived until two days ago and the font hurts my eyes. But the disability center JUST sent me a copy of the whole thing as a PDF, so now I can have my computer read it to me. No more excuses for avoiding it.
…Unless you count that the software that came with it (and is necessary for the class) is for PC only, and I have a Mac… Ah life.
Note to my dear readers: Kindly REFRAIN from leaving any analysis of my relationship with my bf. There is so much more I would write if only I didn’t fear the judgements I sometimes receive on here. Please allow me to document my life here without fear of being told what I’m doing wrong and what you would do differently if you were me. Thank you for understanding!!
I couldn’t let you know ahead of time but I went Home (my parents and dog) recently. I’m back home (bf, school) now but I made it and it was wonderful. I can’t say much tonight; I’m going to go to bed very shortly.