Before I Can No Longer Remember: 1

In a couple of weeks, I'll be 51.
Someone who loves me may someday want to know who I was.
It is time.

My hands, ankles, neck and spine hurt continuously, my hearing is as bad as ever, my eyesight has gone to hell, and I usually have trouble remembering the names of people I don't interact with often. Other things don't work as well as they used to. Some people I have known for years allege that they "know me" and understand my motivations. Not only are they wrong, but if they are not psychic, they are arrogant.

While I've never had a professional diagnosis for Asberger's Syndrome, my graduate work in special education and many years working with learning-, emotionally-, and socially-disabled children has informed me that I fit the paradigm like a glove and, as such, realize that there's pretty much no one, outside my wife and daughter, who I've truly ever allowed behind the veil. And I have grown to know that that's not only unavoidable, but OK.

"Asperger's Disorder was first described in the 1940s by Viennese pediatrician Hans Asperger who observed autistic-like behaviors and difficulties with social and communication skills in boys who had normal intelligence and language development. Many professionals felt Asperger's Disorder was simply a milder form of autism and used the term "high-functioning autism" to describe these individuals...What distinguishes Asperger's Disorder from Autism Disorder is the severity of the symptoms and the absence of language delays. Children with Asperger's Disorder may be only mildly affected and frequently have good language and cognitive skills. To the untrained observer, a child with Asperger's Disorder may just seem like a normal child behaving differently.

Children with autism are frequently seen as aloof and uninterested in others. This is not the case with Asperger's Disorder. Individuals with Asperger's Disorder usually want to fit in and have interaction with others; they simply don't know how to do it. They may be socially awkward, not understanding of conventional social rules, or show a lack of empathy. They may have limited eye contact, seem to be unengaged in a conversation, and not understand the use of gestures.
Interests in a particular subject may border on the obsessive. Children with Asperger's Disorder frequently like to collect categories of things, such as rocks or bottle caps. They may be proficient in knowing categories of information, such as baseball statistics or Latin names of flowers. While they may have good rote memory skills, they have difficulty with abstract concepts.

One of the major differences between Asperger's Disorder and autism is that, by definition, there is no speech delay in Asperger's. In fact, children with Asperger's Disorder frequently have good language skills; they simply use language in different ways. Speech patterns may be unusual, lack inflection or have a rhythmic nature, or it may be formal, but too loud or high pitched. Children with Asperger's Disorder may not understand the subtleties of language, such as irony and humor, or they may not understand the give-and-take nature of a conversation.

Another distinction between Asperger's Disorder and autism concerns cognitive ability. While some individuals with autism experience mental retardation, by definition a person with Asperger's Disorder cannot possess a "clinically significant" cognitive delay and most possess average to above average intelligence." [http://www.autism-society.org]

If we have ever been friends, consider that description, and then compare it with what you remember about our friendship. Spot-on, eh?

I don't know how other people feel about themselves and their social interactions, but not being 'known' used to bring me a lot of angst. Still does, just not so severely. My school years were an endless anguish. The risks and chances I would take to feel accepted nearly cost me my life on a number of occasions. I fought my way through childhood and got my ass handed to me plenty. As a kid, and sometimes today, I do not only feel generally disliked, but one to be avoided as much as possible. The "funny guy" is a mask that requires work and focus to keep from falling off. I cry easily. My chronic sadness, battles with alcoholism, drug-experimentation, tens of failed relationships, and numerous careers have their roots firmly planted in an existential loneliness that goes back to kindergarten. My sister once defined me as a "serial dater", which brilliantly encapsulates this longing to belong that has characterized my half-century of striving. Fifty years of striving to feel a part of something lasting and loving has everything to do with the matters of faith that I will flesh out later.

It took decades to realize that, in so many ways, it has been a blessing to not be widely knowable. It takes a lot of pressure off and delivers vast horizons of freedom that the popular and forever-immersed-in-chatter simply cannot enjoy. Being unknowable is not the same as being unable to know others, and I believe that one of the upsides of being a stationary island is that the ocean and sky can be studied over time from that vantage point and, perhaps, eventually comprehended and appreciated from that perspective.

"The Golden Rule" makes absolute sense to me. Because I know hurt, I don't like to hurt others. This does not mean that I do not hurt others. I have dreadfully hurt others. Rather, it means that I regret when my good intentions, haphazardly deployed, cause hurt in others. I regret when my rage supersedes my judgment and I defend myself clumsily at the expense of the recipient.

This attempt at autobiography reads as though I have gone off-the-tracks and has become a treatise on mild autism. Not so. One cannot build a house on sand and the foundation of my adultfe