Foreign
Everyone is different, right?
I feel like I'm a in a different country, and I don't speak the language.
There's the autism/ADHD thing, for sure. The need to analyze, the constant seeking of patterns, constant overwhelm and not knowing how to properly prioritize, need for alone-time, social anxiety. There are so many miscommunications, it's like there's this extra dimension to language that I'm blind to somehow; I choose my words very carefully, but they often seem to communicate something different than what I intend. (Writing circumvents the "mask", so I'm able to be more myself when I write, but also seem to be more likely to communicate poorly, to unintentionally push people away, and cause them to cut off communication, which feels like death - a rejection of the true me that I usually work so hard to hide.) And I'm terrified of reaching out to people (especially those I don't know), so I just pick a comfortable spot to hide out, and wait 'til I can leave.
No one understands the food issues I have. How can they? If I say, there is nothing in a grocery store that I can eat, it's like people can't wrap their heads around that, or think I must be exaggerating. "Well, what about this package of raisins? They're organic." No, I'm serious. The food in the garden, if I don't preserve it, there will be 8 months of the year where I won't be able to eat. I spend multiple hours every day just cooking the food for the day and washing up the dishes. Yes I'm stressed. No I don't have time.
And theology? At least I have a church were there are people who share my confession. But my connection with them has become so tenuous with everything that has happened. And most of them can't relate to being so far away, and having no family members who are also Lutheran, plus a husband who is not a believer at all, while trying to raise and homeschool two boys in the faith. Church is where I fit in the best, but even there I'm a bit of an odd duck.
And the depression. Though there are unfortunately probably a lot of people who can relate to that. But it's generally kept under wraps, so we don't recognize each other, behind our pasted-on smiles.
Everyone has their burdens. Everyone's lives are overwhelming. Everyone has places where they feel misunderstood. Is mine any worse than anyone elses? I have no real way of knowing. How can anyone truly compare lives?
I think I've become a real jerk. The path I'm on probably doesn't lead anywhere good. Brooding and isolation rarely does. But hopefully it's just for a time. Hopefully the chaos that is my life, with all of this change and flux, will settle into a more predictable routine and pattern, I'll be able to stop greiving and move on, and I'll be able to pull out of this tail-spin, at least a little.
For now though...