From The Mixed Up Mind of a 21 Year Old Aspie

From The Mixed Up Mind of a 21- Year Old Aspie

Please note that any posts with this or a similar title are actual diary entries from my diaries growing up. Names have been changed for privacy purposes, but no editing has been done.

June 13, 2011

1:41 am

So many things have changed, but I still write to you by flashlight. I guess some things never change... but most things are. I HATE CHANGE!

After 16 years of living here, we are selling the house. I'm having a really hard time with it. I mean, I grew up here! I wrote you here. All my memories: good and bad, are here. I'm afraid that when we move, I'll start to forget.

I forget so many things already. I forgot how I met Hillary and how Natasha and I became friends and later sisters. I remember bits and pieces of things, but not everything. 

I remember the first time I saw my room. I was four years old. It was empty except for a treadmill in the far corner. I remember being shocked at how big it was. I remember having to sleep on the floor in mom and dad's room at the beginning because I was too big for my Minnie bed and my "big girl bed" hadn't arrived yet. I pretended to be sad, but knowing they were there with me made me feel safe in a then unfamiliar place.

I remember picking out my "big girl bed"; choosing a blue mattress because I thought it was cool and pretty, then trying to soften it up by jumping on my bed.

I remember getting my first computer, my first tv, the day I got cable, my VCR, setting my first show to record, getting my first desk and taking pictures at it (the only time it got used as anything but a "stop and drop" as mom called it... I later learned that I couldn't focus at a desk), and outgrowing my little furniture thus receiving Uncle David's old bedroom set. 

My favorite memory in my room is of me and daddy playing extreme home makeover. Before I went to high school, I was lost. I wasn't sure who I was or who I wanted to be, but I knew that my room did not represent me at all. I begged daddy to remodel my room. We did it all together. We went through paint samples, furniture shopping, redid my closet at the Container Store... and best of all, we made memories that I will treasure forever. Daddy didn't realize what he was getting into when he agreed, but no matter how many times he complained that it was getting out of hand, he kept going, determined to make me happy. I can't believe I'm supposed to leave that room behind.

I remember getting all my new furniture right before my birthday party and making my friends sleep on my bedroom floor so I could spend my first night in my new bed. I remember another birthday party when I tried to combine my dance friends with my school and neighborhood friends. We all slept in mom and dad's room, but my dance friends spent most of their time downstairs with mom. I remember my makeover birthday party (when everyone was still trying to make me be girly) when Keisha showed up late because her mom had fallen asleep... and her hair was already done... but we tried to give her a makeover anyways. I remember my dance themed birthday party when dad got way too into everything (you have pictures in case you forget).

I remember having "punt, pass, and kick contests" with Mike in the yard (remember that Charlie Brown football movie???????), playing soccer in the front yard using the trees as a goal, growing pumpkins, growing a sunflower taller than me (and mike, mom, and dad), planting tulips with daddy, and failing miserably to grow tomatoes and cucumbers (daddy and I both seem to have black thumbs). 

I remember the day of Mr. Vaughn's wake. I gave Mrs. Vaughn a huge hug and decided that she needed someone to take care of her... she really took care of me. I would disappear over there all the time. Any time I wasn't home, there was always a knock at Mrs. Vaughn's door. She always did more for me than any of the doctors I saw. Her couch was my safe haven and I always said I'd move in there when I grew up, so I could live in the place I felt safest and next to my parents. Even when Mrs. Vaughn had to move to the assisted living facility, I still found comfort in that house. I remember walking into the house for the first time after it was redone, completely confused as to where I was, but still getting the same comforting feeling. I babysat there so I could still spend time there. 

I remember escaping to my fantasy world up on the rock, trick or treating and trading candy, Cambell stopping by all the time (mom always said he had a crush on me), befriending the Royals, and so much more. 

I can't keep my eyes open anymore, but this is helping. Still hate change, but at least I'll be able to come back to these memories if ever I do start to forget.  

I have always hated change. Change meant that I didn't have control of the situation. I know that as a child I didn't have much control, but when things were stable, I felt like I did. I recall being so angry that my parents hadn't consulted me before putting the house on the market. It never crossed my mind that it was not my decision. 

The crazy thing was that I was so worried about forgetting things, when in fact, my auditory photographic memory and the film-like memory I described, makes many things unforgettable. 

As time has distanced me from the situation, I've come to realize that there were many bad memories in that home too. The scenes won't fade from my memory yet, but at least I don't revisit the places where the memories were created... Memories like finding out that Great Nana had passed, Nana had passed, huge tantruming episodes, screaming matches, finding out that Natasha was going to Afghanistan, being tricked into a nasty prank by someone I thought was my friend, and so much more. I still hate change, but maybe it isn't ALL bad...