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.
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...
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