What book are you reading right now?
I can’t tell you anything about this book, really, because I just started it last night. It’s not as fast a read as “House in the Cerulean Sea” or “Under the Whispering Door.” However, I am encountering my first ace character and we are not dissimilar. When I’m not thinking about it, it’s not important. Obviously. There were seven years between Dana and Zac because I was delusional. I wish I could put it better than that, but it was ridiculous to think I could make a mistake like that because it would be something she’d struggle to forgive. That being said, she also made a mistake I’m struggling to forgive, because it changed the course of my life in a way that I wouldn’t necessarily have chosen for myself knowing so much now that I didn’t then. What is important to me is that I have absolutely no problem with the entire world knowing I was straight up out of my fuckin’ mind, because that’s what made the mistake possible. I was in autistic meltdown and taking it out on her.
Then, I literally got burnout for seven years.
My executive function cratered because I felt so horrible. This is what I mean about her having a husband that can spoil her in a way I would’ve wanted, because I owe her a lot more than he does. She should have gotten all the best parts of me, and she didn’t. People can and do change, but not without a backbreaking amount of emotional work. I loved her so hard, I was willing to sit in the pain of rejection until it didn’t hurt anymore; I wanted us both to forgive each other and move on. I wrote her long letters into the night explaining my feelings to that end.
When they didn’t work, I had to stop the pattern of me needing her so much without her securing our attachment. It felt creepy because at the time I didn’t know I was autistic. I didn’t know I was a monotropic thinker and that every time I fall in love that woman becomes my entire special interest. Additionally, I didn’t love her because she was perfect, I loved us in our imperfections because I felt so powerful virtually “standing next to her.” I was a fool, but it was worth it and it always will be.
I don’t know why she wants me to carry the weight of her indecision, but I don’t have to love it. I just have to live it. It is perfectly ok to stop a toxic cycle and cry myself to sleep until it gets better. 10 years is not nothing, and everyone can tell I’ll never get over it because I won’t shut up about it. One of the friends I consider to be the most precious in my mind gave me that line…. “Leslie, you don’t have to love it. You just have to live it.” After that, I called her “the poet laureate of Skidmore Street.” What I do know is that “It Gets Better.” I don’t ruminate over the women in my past as much as I do Dana and Supergrover because they’re the most recent. The immediate reaction is that she’s my Achilles’ Heel. Over time, this will relax. I just have to let it happen because she seems bound and determined to let it.
This may not be the entire reason, but part of it is that my beautiful girl is so goddamn stubborn. She vows not to respond and does. We have done it to each other so much that it doesn’t mean anything anymore and I’ve stopped trying to make it. What I know for sure is that it could go either way based on past history and I’m prepared for every eventuality. That’s what I meant about being able to see living together (the spinster in the attic) to never speaking again. It’s a wide spectrum because we are as people. We are both so brilliant and so stupid about this. I thought yesterday about writing to her, “I wish you’d take it in that I love you like most people love babies…. that wild, crazy love no matter what their future holds.” I realized that’s how most autistic people I’ve met love others. I hope she sees that I’m trying to social mask the right way, but sometimes things are going to get lost in translation. Neurotypical and neurodivergent are two different languages. She’s speaking Hebrew, and it’s all Greek to me (little Biblical humor for you there). Autistic rage and burnout are tangible, they’re so loud. I don’t mean to be rude or avoidant. I am trying to cope with as much as I can handle, which as it turns out is a smaller amount than I’ve been led to believe.
I have covered my social masking until now. Writing is the only way I knew it existed. Being disconnected from Supergrover’s facial expressions while I talked cost me dearly, but writing letters to each other all the time drew me in, because you can’t social mask if you’re not adjusting at every eye twitch. I have said this before, but virtually it’s easy to go a long way down the wrong road very fast.
I have said that we looked before we leapt, but it wasn’t a bad move. It just needs to be managed, and I’m the only one that wants to manage it. It is unfathomable to me that she doesn’t see my point, so I’m done worrying what she thinks if she’s ignoring all my warning signs. That I am trying to tell her something without telling her something. But I can’t hold it over her head that she’s obstinate. I just have to wait it out and wear the wound on my skin until it becomes healthy, stronger scar tissue.
It’s not hard not knowing how she feels. It’s hard not knowing her reactions to what I write. At the same time, she wasn’t here when she was here, only once telling me I was too close to the hard out and making me afraid I’d ever do it again. I’ve seen her warning rattle enough for a lifetime. She has never seen mine, but mine is not about biting her. It’s about trying not to bite her. I am sure that I have made mistakes that I would absolutely regret in publishing anything, much less about this. But I don’t get to feel regret if you don’t tell me you were hurt and why.
Only strangers respond to my writing because it’s not personal. I respect that and like it very, very much because it means that I can be off in my own little world with my own silly observations and no one cares. The only time my friends respond to my writing, really, is when they’re so angry that they can’t see straight. Every deep, intimate, positive portrayal goes out the window because no one can see their own bullshit or respect that I did and have an opinion about it. This has been true since 2003.
There are only two exceptions to this. Bryn tells me when I’ve written something beautiful, and I love when she loves how I’ve portrayed her. She is the 3D character that sees she’s a 3D character. If we got in a fight, she wouldn’t give two shits what I said here, because talking it out personally is more important. She actually would say “what can I do to ease your mind about that?” The same is true of Supergrover, or was until 2014. After that, I was rightfully “PNG’d back to Langley” (slang at CIA for being demoted to a desk jockey- persona non grata).
I just hate it because we used to be Jack and Greer.
“The Secret Lives of Puppets” touches on this because since the protagonist is ace, the story revolves around deep platonic relationships. Sometimes, the universe sends you the book you need to read at the time you need the words most. Finding this book was a godsend in terms of learning about myself. That I focus on deep relationships whether they’re romantic or not. In fact, in this book, the “puppets” are mostly androids and robots.
Using androids and puppets doesn’t mean that I didn’t already pick up the message that friendship is valuable… and being a writer may not make our friendship continue, but it does make it immortal. She will live in me for a lifetime, and after we pass, our words to each other will still be here.
If people know me at all, they know that I might be a mess sometimes, but I love my friends and want to make all of us live forever.
………even without new dialogue.
Stories That Are All True 