Faith and Family

I wish I could just come home to someone who loved me. Who would hold me when I needed to be held. Who wanted to watch movies with me. And ridiculous (sometimes poignant) episodic shows, live action and animated alike. Who wanted to make love to me, not just fuck me. Who wanted to take me out to the places I liked to go, dressed to the 9s, whenever I wanted to go. I'd love to come home to someone who loved me, and trusted and believed in me, as I do in them... that I'd believe and trust someone else to help hold my heart in place... as I did for so many before, with an expectation of mirroring... If I feel and do things, they will also feel and do things... However, it has always seemed to have backfired into the one way street...

I am learning that there is a fine line for most, about the concepts of self image. I love myself, my body, and my brain...but people usually just see a beautiful young woman, and not much else. I love myself as is, but wish to better myself; this doesn't mean I want to change myself all the way... People have the opinion that I'm not even autistic because I don't like trains as much as science fiction (The philosophy of human existence in the disguise of entertainment), or even holding a conversation with someone who has a lot of stories to tell... Small talk is boring... tell me about one of your first core memories... tell me the first moment you felt accepted. Tell me about your first pet or first love?

People are usually fascinating at first, but most are one dimensional or flat. I find the most fascinating people are those that carry the aspects I love within myself. The critical thinking, the empathy, the love in the act of love making, the importance of human connection... the importance of touching and TRUST building. I am a beautiful woman, and in society, I am a novelty; I'm not supposed to have a brain, too.

There is no shortage of men that I could find to talk to... But I seek out those who can hold a conversation with intelligence in emotions but also speak from wisdom and confidence. I usually apologize if I overstep a boundary but please understand that I am still discovering what mine are, let alone trying to instill them with discipline. I feel like I have to constantly forgive myself for the transgressions I cause in others, either what I think I did vs what actually transpired. I am a work in progress, and as emotionally intelligent as I consider I am, it doesn't mean I have all the answers or know why people are feeling the feelings they are in the moment. I feel like I have to constantly apologize for being myself, around family... but I have since dwindled that down to apologizing AFTER we hang out... merited or not.

I don't need to be constantly stimulated by friends or family, but always secretly wished people would reach out to me, as much as I reached out to them... I was yelled at a lot growing up, or the joke "we taught you how to talk and then you didn't shut up" ...it was never funny... The first friends I ever made were my siblings and then my cousins... I have made Family along the way that remind me of my cousins... so far, it's only backfired once.

I learned at an early age the importance of entertaining and busying myself with my own hobby. I am really good at creating things... I love thinking about making something... the steps, the challenges, the sense of accomplishments... but usually I run out of steam on a project, and if I try to continue it, it doesn't produce the original passion....

I really wanted to become an artist when I was younger, but in my early 20s, my father had protested that there wasn't any money to be made as an artist and detoured me once again, dimming my shine to the world. Like, I can entertain myself, no problem. Crafting is an activity for myself, I usually don't share it. ... but now, family members wish that I'd exploit it for profit... well, what then would be the hobby to expel the pressure of selling my wares on the general public? What would be my activity of unwind so I don't cutabitch?

I have denied myself the last two years to create because my partner wanted their own space away from me... but also wanted me to come beg him for attention whenever I desired it. ...Was it wrong to always desire it, but then I felt like I'd annoy him or be a burden to him, so I just... stopped letting him know? I thought if he felt like aspects of my cousins and all the friends that I've accumulated along the way, I thought that if I had those attributes in a partner, that he'd be easier to love... but I now just feel like I was begging for scraps at his table. ...not an equal partner sitting across from him, like I had initially thought I was.

...

What would be my hobby to expel energy from overstimulation, if my first hobby became my source of income? Most times I feel like others see me as an introvert because of my hobby..... and writing is very much an introvert hobby/passion... but being able to convey concepts from my ADHD brain to another human is very important to me... and I could only do that through typed nonsense like this.

I wish to give a piece of myself to other friends to share the emotional load of existence... I wish to help others in the same endeavor, but it can be daunting. Not sure how much or how little people want from me... I let them come to me.... but then, I just end up always waiting around... And I respond much better to a Do-er....

Trust always gets in the way. Or, I guess the question of trust always gets in the way. Can I trust this person to not trample my delicacy? If I can cry openly around you, then I can trust you; if I can unmask and be my overly sensitive self... if I can openly confide in you my thoughts of woe or joy... Only then would we be friends.... I don't trust my siblings because I feel like one hasn't a grip on this reality, and the other is in a DEEP denial of what is happening; always changing. No stability whatsoever... It is very triggering hanging out with her and family because of how my BIL speaks to Sister, propelling the notion to their kids that that is how to address the mother and woman figure in their lives.... to demean and disrespect her for a quick "joke" ...to exploit her lack of understanding or denial of the reality she lives. It's not a sitcom... she's already tried matchmaking me up with a long time friend of theirs who is even more dedicated to the church than my father... No thanks. 

...

“The only moral dimension of our lives is what we do with power.” (Hobbs, YWA podcast). I thought a long time about Michael Hobbs said in that podcast. It made me think about what I’d define as power… I’m sure most would say money or influence… but how I define power is the trust that others have in me. I don’t take such a feat lightly... I don't feel like most of my immediate family have a lot of trust in me… They have hopes and prayers and expectations... but they don't have trust. I feel like I'm always an outsider, like an alien born in the wrong family. Why couldn’t I be the daughter to Uncle D or K or R? Or even M? Uncle M is very pushy but he means well. He threatened to kidnap me the next time I refused to attend church with the family. I know it broke all the Uncles and Aunts’ hearts that I wasn’t there… “for [their dad]” … but no matter what I do in the family, I've never felt 100% accepted by the adultier adults…

It's a completely different story with the rest of my cousins. They've felt more and more like siblings as mine have left me for the insanity of church and fulfilling family expectations that they may or may not have been ready for. ...."if you get married and have kids, everything will be ok" ...as a woman in the Catholic church, I am to become a wife and a mother... I am to collect my sacraments and turn in my resume when I get up to St. Peter for the level of heaven I get to enjoy for the rest of time. 

My thoughts of heaven is sitting around a table telling stories about my life to those who want to hear them. My heaven is meeting all my long-time online friends that I still keep in contact to this day, and those who have passed away before now. I would love to have visited W again, but I kinda wiped out my savings to go see her the one time, and I have never really recovered from it (2018). 

Cousin S was my first understanding of unconditional love... at the age of 5, I first remember Cousin S, he was fun and delightful and loved me wholeheartedly without conditions of behavior. I could and can always be myself around him. The love I have for this cousin has morphed more into an Older Brother aspect. He was the only one I could confide in, in my high school years that made any amount of logical sense. During the mid aughts, I was on MySpace writing lengthy blogs whining about myself and others… He’d write me replies with snarky comments, but give heartfelt advice when it mattered most. 

All my life I was told I was too sensitive and too much this and too much that… all my life I was told to speak a certain way and only like this and when… I was metaphorically programmed to hold a proverbial book steady on my head, forever walking my path with grace and ease… because if I falter and the book falls off, I’d fail and loose credits for an afterlife… a concept that could only hold one desire for me. …sitting around a table of my loved ones who loved me back, without any conditions, who held absolutely no preconceived notions of me. Without any masking. I just want to live with sane family or live close by…. People who would love me as is… I want to better my body and my brain, but that doesn’t mean I want to sign up at the local nunnery just yet.

...

This past weekend, I attended my grandfather's funeral. My father has invested his existence into the catholic church as his father had before. Almost everyone had something say about how much my grandfather loved his FAMILY and honored his wife... But my father went on and on about the catholic church and its importance of his life. I wanted to scratch out his eyeballs. We are his family. Sister, me, Brother... Wife... we are his family. But please tell me the importance of the catholic church and if only I went along with it, would his life suffice... If only we all attended as a family... if we were all a family... if we were one family. My stepmom said to me, "[your niece N] is so well behaved and quiet. 'my granddaughter is a bit difficult.'" ...what do you mean YOUR granddaughter? They are both your granddaughters. There's still a very big bold line of separation in my immediate family that they all pretend doesn't exist when we are around my cousins and "at a family function." .... the appearance of a harmonized family was more important than an actual harmonized family.

FOX News reiterated all the church nonsense into fact instead of fiction or pure metaphor (stolen from cultures around at the time The Bible was written).... I don't get the same level of logic or sense of peace that the rest of the family has settled for. I have always respected and will protect the other family members' actual good Faith in their beliefs... but I don't know if I'd ever share them in the same way; I've seen and witnessed too many upheavals to just ignore them for my own benefit of living (The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas; short story by Ursula K. Le Guin).

I've seen and witnessed the exclusionary practices of the church and the high level of conditional love that my father has placed on me throughout my life… and it has always given me pause to continue my attendance of Church. I get overwhelmed with emotions of guilt and family pressures of behavior... worrying about what I should be doing, instead of just enjoying it. It is a privilege I have yet to master and a notion that I'm coming to terms with never accomplishing. Maybe enjoying life was just for the men, and it is the woman's job to just always take care of everyone else... I am quite tired of caring for everyone else.

Wouldn't it be cool if I could just worry about and take care of myself, first?

...
I can only be included in the family and their business if I attend church... an institution that preys on weak minds and exploits the struggles of others to exemplify the importance of Faith above all logic and betterment of Man... I feel I wouldn't be able to be my authentic self, gay and autistic.... AND be in the catholic church. BUT I want to be able to be welcomed into my family like I've always felt like with my extended family members and the Family I have collected along the way.... I feel like Sister has settled.... and she is not a good example I would like to follow, let alone be friends with.... She means well, but she doesn't have a grip on this reality, and if she is repeating the history of when we were kids, with a Mom like we had, I don't want much of a part in her life if I can help it. Does that make me a horrible person? Or someone who wants to protect themselves?

What level of insanity am I willing to settle for, in order to feel loved and accepted just being me? I don't think it exists.

Snow.