update from sparkleup

writing/sawtooth/limerent-object.html

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 <p>Finally, I had the chance to attend her senior recital, where several other students from the various departments performed a few short compositions of hers. The music was cerebral and, to my ears, dissonant, but it was as fastidious as her in a way that I cannot explain. I applauded heartily and after the show we hugged and she invited me out to drinks with her family, who all proved quite friendly and much like her. Thinking back, I suspect that must have made quite the sight: four coyotes sitting around a table at a fairly nice restaurant, speaking in essays to expound on whatever thesis has come into their heads.</p>
 <p>Spending time with other autistic folks was not a strange occurrence to me, as I had known a few in seminary and had of course met several in my training, but for some reason, that night was the first time I could say that I felt comfortable in that portion of my identity. I felt at home with others, and, strange as it seems to say, rather like a member of their family.</p>
 <p>My lunch break is nearing its end, out here in the liminal lot, so I should probably hold off from writing any more, but I should note before I do that it <em>is</em> interesting that much of what I describe here in retrospect bespeaks an early attraction that I had not at the time attributed to budding romance or anything like that. Perhaps it was, in the end.</p>
+<hr />
+<p>It is a Saturday today and I have no clients, so I am attempting to write at home rather than on a bench somewhere, and am actually using my computer for it this time rather than swiping my thumbpad across a phone screen. I have to admit that I feel very strange writing like this. It feels almost like a violation of a habit, despite having only been at this for a few days.</p>
+<p>I have put some further thought into what I wrote about yesterday, about the fact that there may have been some hints at romance or a crush or what-have-you prior to the time when Kay moved away.</p>
+<p>I do not think that, at the time, I was thinking in terms of romance, and I also don&rsquo;t think that it was on Kay&rsquo;s mind either. Her parents may have been of the mind that we might have been going out with each other, but I do not know.</p>
+<p>However, I am also not sure that my conscious self was entirely in line with my subconscious at the time. I speak now in retrospect, of course, and at the moment I know very much that they often seem to float closer and further away from each other in terms of agreement, so I do wonder whether or not my subconscious was heading deeper into a desire for more than friendship.</p>
+<p>This means that there are two possible scenarios to consider:</p>
+<ul>
+<li>My subconscious mind was starting to, as a client put it the other day, catch feelings, and thus the situation I find myself in now has a longer history than expected</li>
+<li>The history behind this current set of emotions has some later starting point and the way in which Kay and I became friends has no bearing on the present other than as an interesting story.</li>
+</ul>
+<p>If the former is the case, then I think it is worth some introspection as to what about our in-person interactions might have drawn me to her romantically. As I mentioned, she was frightfully smart. She was kind. She was not unattractive, either, and as a coyote, certainly someone who ought to have been in the market for me (I know that many of the more liberal bent are increasingly okay with interspecies relationships, but, liberal as I try to be, my time upbringing and my time within the church seem to have set me on the straight and narrow path, here).</p>
+<p>If the latter is the case, however, then I have to wonder why it is that such feelings did not form until distance became an issue, for less than a month after that dinner with Kay and her parents, she moved away from UI Sawtooth to prepare for her masters at UI Boise and our communication moved almost entirely to email and PostFast messages. I know that we tried to call once or twice, but neither of us is particularly keen on phones.</p>
+<p>When I speak with my patients struggling with anxiety disorders, one of the exercises that I have them perform after a panic attack is to walk back to when the panic attack started and write down what they were doing and how they were feeling. Once they have done that a few times, they can look for similarities in the reports, and then they can start walking back further from the starting point of the attack in order to discover potential triggers. Knowing those, they can begin working on coping and avoidance mechanisms.</p>
+<p>I know that I am trying to justify to myself my work on this journal so far, but I think that this is part of what I am doing here. I am not sure that I necessarily want to cope or avoid these feelings that I&rsquo;m having, necessarily, but I do want to at least understand better when they began, and by understanding the past, better understand the present.</p>
+<p>So, in that spirit, I think the first time I noticed this crush on Kay was perhaps six months ago. I remember having spent an evening talking with her about music, about which she has been slowly teaching me, both of us sending each other videos to watch and counting down from three so that we could hit play at the same time and talk about what we were both hearing as it happened.</p>
+<p>After the conversation, I had gone to bed thinking that there was something about that particular interaction that felt oddly intimate to me, and when I lay in bed, instead of falling asleep quickly as usual, I spent a while thinking back to her senior recital and that hug that we shared after. In particular, I was thinking about the combination of the feeling of her cheekfur, soft and dry against my own, and her scent.</p>
+<p>The room, as with most venues, had had quite a bit of scent-block in place, and I know that that sort of non-scent had a tendency to cling to for a while after having been in a room where it had been layered on quite thick.</p>
+<p>However, while the audience had been sitting still and watching the concert, Kay had been up on the stage for much of the performance, conducting, playing the piano, and speaking about the music she had written and I suspect that that combined with any nerves she may have felt prior to and during the performance must have had her a bit worked up, for she smelled more strongly than I&rsquo;m sure I did.</p>
+<p>I remember laying in bed, breathing shallowly as I tried to recall that scent in its most intricate details. My thoughts became fractal in my weariness and I found myself refining and refining my memories. Did she smell of exertion? Did she smell of cleanliness? Did she smell fresh? She smelled of all three, so what were the percentages of each within her scent as a whole.</p>
+<p>I remember feeling a pang in my chest as I realized that I wanted to experience that again. That scent, the feeling of her cheek against mine. I wanted it desperately. I craved that moment, drawn out and extended.</p>
+<p>I am no stranger to sexual fantasies. I have had them plenty in my life, and am not ashamed to admit that, but the thing that sticks with me about this night of fantasizing is that there was nothing sexual about it. I did not fantasize about Kay and I some day having sex, of all the things we might do along those lines. Instead, I fantasized about hugging her, breathing deep, then leaning back and, for some reason, brushing my thumb over her cheek.</p>
+<p>I don&rsquo;t know why, but that night, that act picked up a talismanic significance, as though were I to perform the ritual - the hug, the breath, the brush through fur - in precisely the correct way, I might somehow feel a light more intense than the sun wash through me, feel a rush of fulfillment, feel a sense of rightness and completion.</p>
+<p>Finally, I remember praying. I remember speaking to God and holding in tension my words to Him and these feelings that I was having. I remember asking Him what this meant. What, O Lord, does it mean to desire fulfillment from another person? I do not want to possess them. I do not want to lay with them. I am not even sure that I love them. I just want to be happy with them, and yet in such a specific way. What does it mean?</p>
+<p>The little voice through which God speaks to me was silent. I was not surprised - the domain of God&rsquo;s works are not the petty interpersonal relationships between individuals but rather whether or not their lives are lived in grace or in sin, and whether or not they strive to bring grace to the world around them.</p>
+<p>I was not surprised, but I was, admittedly, disappointed. I try not to be disappointed in the ways of the Lord, of course. It&rsquo;s not His job to solve my problems, and to expect him to do so is silly.</p>
+<p>I perhaps just wanted some guidance.</p>
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