Part IV: The Wedding, the Honeymoon and the Story Continues

So here we are, today is the day, July 30^th. 21 years ago we were married…. barely.

See everyone has an opinion on what happened just before we got married. Some have been very stalwart in their opinion of the situation. But Clare and I know the truth.  Twenty-one years after the fact, it’s more of a joke and we laugh about it than anything else. Oh, and I might add, it was really by the grace of God that we were married.

Let’s start with the engagement. We got engaged on Christmas Eve, 1993. I proposed that evening and she heartily accepted. So then, everything changed after that Christmas season. I had finally graduated from college and I needed to find a full time job. Yeah, I got engaged before I had a stable source of income. I really didn’t think I could wait any longer. Clare had been instrumental in every step of the process and considering she was ready to get married back in 1991, she was done waiting and could wait no longer. A "move it or lose it" type of situation, to put it nicely.  And I don't mean she was going to break up with me, she was going to do something drastic, like maybe really knock me out and I would awake before the priest waiting for "I do."

Over the next five months, our lives changed dramatically. Before this we were both living with our respective sets of parents, with minimal responsibilities. From January to May, I found my first full time job as a contract drafter at TWA, then later in early May of 1994, I started a new job at Burns and McDonnell engineering, and I finally had quit the grocery store I had worked at for 5 ½ years. I also moved out of my parents’ house the month before we got married, and I got the house ready for us to start our new life. She moved in just before the wedding, well, at least her stuff did, she didn’t actually move in until after we were married.

So just think about this… within a relative short six months, I graduated school, started to work full time, got engaged, moved out on my own, got married and it was not soon after, because of the way we chose to live our lives, my wife could become pregnant at any time. Yes I had faith, but I am really going to be honest with you. Reality really punched me pretty hard in the stomach, and I would say I experienced several nervous breakdowns. Now, if it comes up in anyway, I do not recommend people do this, especially younger folks. Give it some time. Don’t try to change everything in one year. I personally don’t think its healthy.

What matters is that we made it. We got married and started a new life on our own, well barely. Let me tell you another story, concerning an extremely crucial part of the wedding ceremony.

See we had planned everything, with the usual parent’s involvement. Clare had many friends and family to help her decide on plans, food, reservations, dresses, shoes, etc. Extensive plans were made by many people to make this a wonderful day for Clare, and me, yeah I was in there somewhere. Anyway, we also tried to do everything as frugal as we could, but still have it be nice.

Through all this planning, which occurred over months, not once did ANYONE, ever mention the marriage license. Yes,… the marriage license. See I really think that every newborn child is born with the inherent knowledge that before you get married, you must go apply for the marriage license. All children must have this, except me, and for that matter, Clare.

Let’s see… hmm… I come from a family with one brother who was nine years older than me, and he got married like five years before I did. I think I signed the marriage license, because I was the best man, but that was about it. I didn’t ask him, “Well, dear brother, how did you come by this legal documentation of your lawfully wedded matrimony…” No one said a thing. You would think that the family that has already experienced five weddings would have mentioned something over the weeks and months leading up to the wedding that, yes you need to get a marriage license. You would even think over the many meetings we had with the priest to take personality and compatibility tests and go through counseling that he might mention the …marriage license. But to no avail. With all the friends that we had, especially Clare, some of whom had already tied the knot, you would think someone; somewhere would say something about the… marriage license.

Marriage license??? … yes… listen to the sweet silent chirp of crickets in the night… not one thing was ever said, and it did not occur to anyone in our lives, and most importantly, to ourselves that we needed to apply for a marriage license. This is one of those things that I think God allows to happen to teach generations of would be marrieds. Clare and I were supposed to cross over the vast stretches of the world proclaiming to yet to be newlyweds “Make sure you have your marriage license…” Let’s just say I smelled a lot of coffee after that… and when I smell coffee I will never think about it the same way. If you don’t know I mean by that, you are very welcome to ask Clare yourself. I will keep my comments to myself, where they belong and I will take them to my grave, out of respect for people I love dearly.

OK, OK, let’s just cut to the chase. I left work early the day before our wedding, met Clare and we raced to the courthouse in Independence and pleaded with the judge to issue us one. That was where I wrote my first piece of legal literature, with flowery words on how we were ignorant of the law and irresponsible for not obtaining a license on time. Poor Clare had been in tears the whole time, and lets just say “I felt like an idiot.” was a gross understatement. Now, after that, we could breath just a bit. We had the rehearsal dinner. That went OK. No drama there, geeezzz. Then we all rested and the next day was the wedding.

Yes the wedding, in the grand scheme of things it was nice, wonderful, beautiful, touching, and lifetime worth of wonderful memories of that beautiful day. But really I was going to kill someone. Yes, I was so nervous, and on the verge of a complete mental breakdown, that one of my very good friends made of very keen insight. He informed me that I was so uptight no one could squeeze a greased ball bearing up my anterior. And let's not forget to mention Clare, she woke that Saturday morning with a red bloodshot eye, like she had pink eye or something. Poor woman, she had already gone through enough and then this.

Let's just say the whole experience was like this. Have you ever seen the movie “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”? Well let me tell you, that movie is based on Clare and I, almost to the tee. Except, replace Greek Orthodox with Roman Catholic, and there really were not so many Nicks and Nickies as there were Mary's. And it wasn't a zit, but pink eye. Yes, it was that crazy and that awesome at the same time.

So yes, the wedding happened, and then the reception. It was a lot of fun. Clare was having her fill of champagne, and I refused to drink because I was driving us to our hotel afterwards and I was overly cautious about her safety on her special night. We didn't need any accidents or run-in's with the police, we had already been through enough. But then it was there late at night, towards the end of the reception I did the most romantic thing that would make any blushing bride's heart melt with tenderness and affection, I sang “Foxy Lady” by Jimmy Hendrix to Clare, out on the dance floor, ...sober, ...while the DJ hid under his table in embarrassment.

Then there was the Honeymoon, yes we made it through the night, after people were banging on our hotel door. Yes those lovely Messer people had figured out where we were staying, like it wasn't obvious, and I guess they wanted to come in and join the party. Ah, but they waited and knocked to no avail. The other side of the door just remained mysteriously silent.

The next day, after the wedding, we did some opening presents and then headed down to the Ozarks to stay at Clare's Aunt and Uncle's Lake house. It was really nice, but there was the water issue, you had to turn the water on outside with a special tool contrived by my wife's uncle and there was a certain way to turn on the water. Unfortunately I was not smart enough to figure out how to turn it on all the way, thus the pressure was not enough to fill the hot water tank, thus the whole time we were down there we only had cold water. Then we tried to swim. Not sure what happened, but the water was full of dead minnows, yummy. So that didn't go to well. After our failed attempts at swimming, Clare decided to lay out on the dock while I tried not to do anything stupid. It was at that moment that one of those notorious Ozark horse flies landed on Clare. I remember her panicked voice calling out to me, “Dwight, Kill it., Kill it”. I ran up to her and believe you not I had never seen a fly that big. I exclaimed “Wow he is huge, I can even see the hairs on his butt!” That was it, she jumped up off the dock and ran into the lake house screaming, as I ran after the horse fly trying to catch it as a specimen of great interest. Needless to say we cut our honeymoon short by two days and just went home. We were exhausted and worn out, but we got rested up the rest of that week and we began our new life.

Well that's how it happened, so yeah… I didn’t become an archaeologist like Indiana Jones and search for long lost relics in the Mediterranean, Europe or Asia, I didn’t leave the States to go live with nomads in the Mongolian steppes, living in a yurt, herding sheep, cattle and goats from the back of a horse with an AK-47 strapped to my back (yes, I wanted to do this…) I didn’t enlist in the Marines or the Army during the first Persian Gulf War (Clare said no…and they may have not taken me anyway), I didn’t become a writer for TSR (Dungeons and Dragons – I still think they stole my idea for a Greek and Roman source book, that’s a whole story in itself), I didn’t start my own war-games miniature business, nor did I become a game developer (yet), animator (yet) or a published writer (yet), but I did marry the greatest woman I know, full of beauty, wisdom, love, patience and caring.

Well, when I started writing this story last week, I had no idea how it was going to turn out. And where do you end it? The story continues. This blog is about “Married with Asperger's” It mainly focuses on my interpretation of Clare and I, our life together, raising five unique and incredible children, and especially our marriage. See Clare is nuerotypcial, as we Aspies like to say, and I am the alien in a strange land. She has been my social and cultural translator and guide in life since we first met, an ambassador for a stranger in a strange world. Many times I have had to ask “What did they mean by that, or why do they do this?” She has been there for me in my darkest days and shared my brightest moments. There is no other person I would want to be with me through my life. I truly do believe that she is a gift from God. I asked for her back on that June day in 1991, and God gave her to me.

In our years of research about both Autism and Asperger's there is a high rate of divorce among couples in which one of the spouses has Asperger's. It is so unfortunate and breaks my heart. The odds are really against us, but we rely on faith and love to get us through. My feelings about being lonely and at the same time having difficulty with social interaction is just one of the great dichotomies of Asperger's. You desire close relationships, you desire friendships, but in most cases it is very difficult to maintain them and to have reciprocal relationships.

I always make the comment that the Dwight you see today is the Dwight that Clare has spent the last 24 years working with, listening to, counseling, understanding and loving. It has been her tender heart, her willingness to try and understand where I am coming from and what I am that began the change in our marriage. It all started when we were trying to learn about both of our sons who were diagnosed with Autism at a very young age. We watched a video about Temple Grandin. ( Look her up on Google). As we watched the video, I told Clare I didn't see anything odd with the way she explained the way the autistic brain worked. How I could visualize things, how I processed information and input new information all the time, constantly. I definitely related to the social issues. That was when Clare began to realize that there was something different about me too. Our marriage changed drastically after that. I will admit it was struggle before and still is at times, but through understanding life has been much better for the both of us. With her wanting to help me, it softened my heart. By both of us being transparent with each other, by having soft tender hearts, by love and definitely by our faith in Jesus Christ, are we still married today. She said to me long ago when I was going through a difficult time, “Honey, I will never leave you.” Do you know the power of that statement, especially after you have been an ugly person. It gave me a hope to continue living. She gives me hope and helps me every day cope with this world. I can never repay a debt like that back.

And the story continues...                                

Part III: The First Date and then some...

Well, welcome back again, as our saga continues (Its a long one) and that special day grows nearer…

Eventually life went on after that night. I went back to my usual routine of working a lot and then all the other activities I did to occupy my hyperactive mind and body.

It was one day that a guy I worked with at the grocery store asked me if I knew a “Clare Messer”. Hmm, I had heard that name before, but I couldn’t place a face. I remember we were standing near the front of the store near the registers, I was a stocker at the time and I worked back in the warehouse. He then told me something that kind of shocked me. “Yeah, she likes you; she has been trying to find you…” I must say, my heart leaped, but I really couldn’t remember what she looked like, I had only met her once. Anyway, he told me that she had been trying to find me and wanted my number so we could talk. He gave me her number along with her picture, which I still have. I didn’t think too much more about it, but it was nice. See girls rarely had given me their number before, but if they did, once they talked to me, they became quickly disinterested; I think it had something to do with that awkward social ineptness thing. I usually came off as either an idiot or a weirdo. So why would this be any different, but it was very touching to me that she cared to track me down.

It took some time for us to even get together on the phone. See in those days, we didn’t have an answering machine nor did we have email or caller ID. It was really a chore. I later learned that she had been “chasing” me for about a month. Now, let me be clear about something here… girls did not chase me… they usually ran away… far away and fast, at a full sprint... sometimes screaming…

We kept missing each other’s calls. So one day we finally made contact, talked just briefly, and I was going to call her at 11 am on a Thursday, the only day she was going to be home for two weeks. I figured this was it, if we couldn’t get this right, I figured she was just playing around with me. See, that’s the way it had been. I had been stood up multiple times by other girls. In fact sometimes, I expected it, it happened so often. I even had a poor girl hide from me in a bathroom in high school one time, I really must have been a weirdo.

So back to the call, I watched the clock intently for 30 minutes, making sure I timed it just right. At the stroke of 11 am I called. There was no answer. I hung up… that’s it, I was done, I’m not messing around anymore. This is stupid. I had been played again. I think I went and lay in my bed and watched Empire Strikes Back for the 523^rd time, those AT-AT's are the coolest thing … STILL!.

About 30 minutes went by, and the phone rang. Hmm, who could that be? I answered it, and it was Clare, apologizing she had missed my call, she had been in the shower.

We finally connected, it was then we talked for almost two or three hours. It was exhausting, I don’t think I had ever listened to some one talk that long, or said so many words myself. I think towards the end of the conversation, I literally began close my eyes, just to relax. Don’t get me wrong, the conversation was incredible, I had never talked to a girl this long, about so many things.

Really, for me it was weird, especially that one part. Yeah, it was “that part”, where I think I stopped breathing…it was that part about getting married and having 10 children … (long pause… just let that sink in a minute)… Yes, that was in our first conversation. She told me she was only interested in finding someone that she wanted to marry, and she wanted to have ten, count them ten children. I think at that moment, my head started to spin, and I felt nauseous. I wasn’t even out of college yet, and we haven’t even gone out on a date, and she is already talking marriage, and… children??? Really? I think at that point I sat down slowly in the chair, like when someone receives life altering news about their future. Yeah, I just sat there and stared off into the kitchen, listening to her talk about marriage and ten children. Many people have asked, ‘You didn’t hang up?” Well, no I didn’t. I think I was in shock. I really didn’t know what to do. No girl had ever talked to me like this. Marriage, Love, Intimacy, Commitment, Jesus, Church, Children, Hippies, Station wagons, little pink house on the prairie… all in the first conversation we had, what in the heck was she talking about??? I thought I was the crazy one. Needless to say I didn’t run yet, it wasn’t like we were going to go out on a date and then she was going to knock me out, run me up to the church, the priest would be waiting there ready to perform the ceremony, at least I didn’t think so. Anyway, from that first conversation, we setup a date and I figured well, let’s see what happens,

On our first date went to go see a movie which she got free tickets for, it was called Point Break. Now I’m giving you all a time reference . After the movie we decided to go to one of my favorite hangouts, Cool Crest and shoot pool. No, No, I didn’t take her to Raytown Pool Hall, that place was a little too shady for her, it might have scared her off. As the evening progressed, things got interesting while we played pool. I loved to shoot pool and I was really good at it. She on the other hand was not as experienced with it, but instead of getting frustrated or just sitting and not wanting to make a fool of herself, she joked around and acted silly… hmm, there comes that “sense of humor” I asked for. Very interesting and it was very cute, it actually melted my heart and relaxed me immensely.

Our first date ended with me taking her to my house. My parents were home. And this was for me the most important segment of our first date. I proceeded to show her all my work. My writing, maps of my worlds, all of my drawings of ships, weapons that I was creating, yeah, I know total Asperger’s. I think I overwhelmed her, but she was good at hiding it. See, it was really a test, but at the time I did not intend it to be… I revealed to her who I was, I was transparent with her, and if she didn’t like what she saw, she could leave and we could end this right here and now before we wasted each other’s time. The thing is she didn’t run, she stuck around, and wanted a second date. I was in shock.

We continued to date over the next 3 ½ years. I would liken our relationship to be much like connected at the hip. After we had dated a year, I bought her a promise ring from a local jewelry store. It cost me six monthly lay-away payments and that was a big deal for me. I semi-proposed to her when I gave her the ring and I promised to marry her, including the ten children, the station wagon, the Jesus thing, the Love thing and the little house on the prairie thing if that was part of it. See its hard to explain, but as I think back, we shared life together. She really didn’t care what was going on as long as she was with me and I, with her.

Let me tell you that she was incredible. What other girl would have spent many Friday or Saturday evenings in a basement with 8 to 13 guys watching us play GURPS or Dungeons and Dragons… what girl would do that??? She went with me to some of the various heavy metal concerts I had attended (and don’t think hair spray bands please, we are talking about real heavy, gritty metal here), even though she was not fond of the music or the plethora of bikers, metal heads and freaks. She was even there that time the crowd tore part of the ceiling out of the Eagle's Club cause a guy body surfing got his foot caught in the suspended ceiling, so a group of us had to pull him down. Though, I could never convince her to go into a mosh pit with me, I guess it wasn’t her thing. I did talk her into trying karate classes, I wanted her to learn self-defense. But after one class, she just patted me on my head and said, “You are my self-defense”.

I lost count of how many evenings we just hung out at her parents’ house or at my house. If we were at my house, we usually were in my bedroom while I sat at my desk and I was either drawing or writing, she laid on my bed and watched some science fiction movie that was playing for the thousandth time on my little TV. It will tell you right now, that was love.

Don’t get me wrong, we just didn’t do things I liked to do, we did a lot of stuff she wanted to do, but I will be honest, it wasn’t easy for me. But I loved her and I wanted to be with her, and she in turn wanted to be with me.

One interesting example of this was what I like to call the “All of the sudden, let’s go out of town on a trip thing”. I need preparation for things like this. She just wants to hop in her car and go. Yes, it happened all the time. Let’s go to the Ozarks, let’s go to Clinton, let’s go to St Louis, let’s go to the lake,… geeezzz. I thought can’t you stay in one place for just a little bit, like a month? That’s how we wound up driving to Topeka during a snow storm, just to see her sister. She told me Thursday night, “We are going to see my sister tomorrow” and by Friday night we were on the road, in a snow storm. Mind you, did you see how I worded that; yes… this was no question. I’m going whether I want to or not, and “You better be ready to go mister or I am not going to be happy with you”. Needless to say, I obeyed. Yes, life became much crazier and much more unpredictable when I met Clare. And there we were, she was driving in her Cutlass to Topeka in a snow storm… not my idea of fun, but there really wasn’t anyway I was going to let her go by herself.

She loves horses and in those days, I helped her take care of one of her friend's horses. One day we went out to the pasture to bring him in. He was old and the other horses at the farm didn't like him, I guess. He was beat up a bit. But we spent many a day taking care of him. One day, and I'm not sure what caused it, but the other horses on the farm, some 25 of them rounded the pasture and were heading north to south to the main gate, which we were headed to as well, but from west to east. Imagine that many horses at full gallop coming right at you. I told Clare to jump on the old horse, get to the gate and get inside. What do you think I did? With no prior knowledge of horses, I ran straight at the herd, began yelling and waving my arms at them. I never had seen so much comedy in my life, as I saw all 25 of the horses slipping and sliding in the mud as they struggled to avoid the crazy kid who was running straight at them, they quickly veered off to the west, and Clare and horse were in relative safety inside the corral.

And then there were parties. Yes I had gone to a few, I had one or two very small ones, and some of my friends had parties, but she would take me to these types of parties where there seemed to me like there were hundreds of people and she knew all of them. For someone like me, this was tantamount to literal panic. I would just follow closely behind her while she socialized. If someone started to talk to me I would just grab her and shove her at them, that way I didn't have to talk to them. I still do this today, I take her to social events for work or something, and I just let her lead the way. All she has to do he run into some stranger and she gets their whole life story. I don't have to do anything but watch. Its kind of nice and its amazing to see her in her element of the social gathering. Oh, and don't let me forget, the family gatherings, yes can we say “overwhelming”. All these people, all the food and it was always so loud and everyone talked at once. How could they understand each other? I usually found an isolated corner to crawl into and go into fetal position. If I saw an example of literal human chaos, this was it.

She was neurotypcial, a normal teenager, and I was not. I was what I know now to be Asperger’s, in other words, not typical or normal. You would think two people so totally opposite of each other could not stand to be in a relationship together, but its really supernatural how our relationship developed and our love grew. In our case, opposites do attract, quite powerfully.

To be continued...

Part II: How we Met

DISCLAIMER: All names of the involved persons have been removed from this story to protect the innocent.

So, where did I leave off… oh yes... I had prayed for someone to love me. All I knew is that she had brown hair, would have a good sense of humor and had morals. Believe it or not, it was within about a month that I met Clare Messer. Allow me tell you the story of how we met.

See, we met through friends and I am thoroughly convinced by a grand orchestration of the Lord. Situations like this just don’t happen by coincidence, or by some random chance of fate. I literally asked, and within His time, I received.

How we met was an interesting story in and of itself. It was one of those nights, a Friday I think, I had the night off work and there wasn’t a Dungeons and Dragon’s game going on, so I hooked up with some of those good friends who kept me out of trouble. We met at one of my friends’ houses, and his brother was there with some of his friends. Among that group was a girl, her name was Clare Messer. She had long brown curly hair and was wearing a black shirt, jean shorts and tan western boots (Yes, I distinctly remember this). We all hung out there as we tried to decide what to do. We decided to go to another girl’s house that had a trampoline, who I did not know, (she wasn’t even home). See that was one of the things we did, we liked to go to people’s houses and jump on their trampolines and try not to crack our heads open. Well actually that was just me, everyone else was pretty proficient at jumping on trampolines. When I jumped on a trampoline it was more like a slinky on one of those old paint machines that mixed the paint… it really didn’t work out… I always wound up sprawled out like a bear skin rug, or hanging half way off the trampoline, it could be a dangerous affair for me. Luckily I didn’t hurt myself too bad and usually everyone else got off to avoid being injured by my body flopping around like it did, out of control.

Everyone had a turn jumping on the trampoline that night except me, if I remember right, I chose to stay off, not wanting to make a fool of myself in front of girls I really didn’t know. Though after a while, I did finally climb up there after Clare invited me to jump with her… poor girl. I had refused a few times knowing that Mr. Clumsy didn’t need to be falling off the trampoline. Yet, I conceded and got up there anyway. It was all good until she got a little offended when I fell on her a couple of times. (She thought I was getting “handsy”) I tried to explain to her I was not very coordinated, and I was clumsy… she didn’t buy it. Heck that’s why I studied karate for years and lifted weights religiously since I was twelve to overcome my clumsiness and awkwardness. So, not to offend her anymore or worry her about her safety, I got down and did not get on again.

As it got dark, we were all tired and just doing what young adults do, hang out and talk. I stood in the shadows where it was comfortable. Then it happened.. to my embarrassment, one of my friends asked me to do some of my sound effects. See I was good at making sound effects, especially of cats and dogs. I had grown up around animals all my life, and I always mimicked their sounds. After some chiding and asking continuously, I finally gave in and did a cat fight and barked like a dog from around the corner of the house. Wow, what a way to impress a girl, “watch this, I can bark like a dog”… yeah right. I’m pretty sure those that did not know me that well that night thought I belonged in the looney bin… maybe they were right.

Anyway, it was getting time for us to leave and Clare and her friends were sitting on the patio. Again, I was standing behind everyone, on the outside. As she was trying to put on her boots she turned around and looked at me and said”you are standing in my light” and I was standing right in front of the light on the back of the house, casting a shadow over her. I thought “Wow, what a bitch… I think this girl hates me…”, little did I know she wanted me to come and sit down in front of her and talk, which I did.  By this time I was very confused, because she kept talking to me and asking questions. I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t even know really what she was asking me or what she wanted. I just sat there and gave one word responses.

After a while of awkward conversation, everyone began to leave and making their way to their cars. Then it happened, to my horror, everyone started hugging each other. This was very uncomfortable for me, what the heck was the matter with them? Was someone leaving on a trip or did someone die? They were all hugging each other. Geeezzz. See at the time I didn’t fully realize that all these kids went to church and they all had gone on a retreat called Teens Encounter Christ, which explains why at the time their extremely odd behavior, and to be quite honest, I was a little worried about them. I had never seen people act like that. When my parents tried to hug me, which was not often if I had anything to do with it, it was like they were grabbing a hold of a cold dead fish, my poor parents and what they had to put up with. Human touch was very uncomfortable to me, it was so …embarrassing. So nevertheless, I backed away slowly for fear of someone hugging me. Who knows I might have run away at that moment if that had happened. Yet I distinctly remember in the dark, Clare standing to the far edge of our little group, next to her friend’s car staring at me. That was when that funny feeling came over me like I should do something. But I had no idea what I should do. Should I go speak to her? Should I ask for her phone number? I thought she hated me and we had just met. It was all very confusing. Later that night, on the road, I remember riding through the north part of Grandview, it was dark and I sat in the back seat of my friend’s car. I sat there with my forehead pressed against the window thinking I had screwed up and missed the biggest opportunity of my life and I would never see her again.

To be continued….

24 Years Ago we met, 21 years we have been married...

Bear with me as I share with you a story, its rather long… for if I am given the time, I can write novels on most subjects, whether they are readable is another story… some of you have heard this story, or some parts of it, some of you haven’t and some of you have experienced it through the years we have shared our lives together.

My relationships with people have been a multi-colored affair, sometimes, a mess, sometimes a good thing. In the past some people just haven’t understood me and they have in turn, confused me. Many of you who I consider my friends, or acquaintances are so, because on both sides we have made an effort to understand each other, or at least I hope so. I am very eccentric, awkward at times, a little insane (though some would disagree with the level insanity that I claim, suggesting men with a straight jacket and a little white truck come take me away…)  Anyway, my entire social development as a human being has been a great challenge. After learning about Asperger’s and Autism, things in life began to make a little more sense as to simply why…

Concerning earthly, human relationships (as opposed to spiritual), there is one that has literally transformed my life. That relationship I have had for the last 24 years. If you went back in time and told me 25 years ago that I would get married and have five children, I would have laughed at you, said that you were a moron.

At that time, I believed that there was really no one, except my family, who would love me. I had a relatively complex life that I had created myself through my behavior and relative ineptness at social interaction and interpretation.  In my later teens I was blessed with some good close friends who were able to keep me out of more trouble than I needed during those turbulent years. Girls wouldn’t go near me and avoided me like the plague when I was in high school. When I turned 19, I had gone through just a few extremely brief relationships; actually they weren’t relationships at all, more like friends dating.

I dated one girl (several years younger than me) for two months, my longest “relationship”, but she dumped me once she figured out I was really not going to go the extra mile with her. Even though I was not a Christian, (more like a secular humanist), the last thing I wanted to do was get a girl pregnant, I just wasn't ready for that kind of responsibility, plus my Mom would kill me.  I did go to her prom after we had stopped dating. (Note: I did not go to any of my own dances in school for obvious reasons, social interaction terrified me.) For me, that evening quickly turned sour, as she sought to get rid of me quickly after the dance was over. Though, I knew of her plan the whole time through friends that had told me, I went anyway because I said I would go and it was the right thing to do. When the dance was over I left her so she could go partying and I went to shoot pool at the local pool hall till 2 am. I had more fun doing that then at that prom dance thing.

A few months passed, and it was on a sunny June of 1991 that I laid in my bed and I called out in my mind to One who I would come to realize was God, but at that time I was an agnostic on good days, and an atheist the rest of the time (I usually had to explain to people what an agnostic was…). 

On that day I prayed for a girl who actually cared about me, who would love me. Ill be honest, I desperately wanted a love beyond the familial, and, I didn't even really know what I was asking for because I really didn’t understand love. I prayed that she would have morals (like don’t lie to me about anything, be there for a date when we set up one, etc...), she would be funny and have a good sense of humor. I pictured her with brown hair in my mind, but I could not see her face or her body form… I just asked God, if he existed to bring her to me. After that day, I went on with my life, working a lot during that summer, like I did all year, going through my routine of lifting weights every morning, running, cycling, karate classes, working in a grocery store and in my free time writing, drawing and gaming very early versions of my worlds.  

To be continued.....