Losing myself, and Being found

                I was released from the custody of the state at the age of 18. I hadn't wanted to be released, in fact I had signed up for 4 more years of the state controlling my life. At the time I was living at Brooklawn in Louisville, Ky. It was my prom night, and I had permission to stay out till a certain time but under no circumstances was I to remain out all night.

                Before I get into this story, let me say that I have never been the easiest person to get along with. I am quick to judge based on existing life experience, I am stubborn to a fault, and I am honestly very selfish. It is hard for me to see and understand others feelings. Needless to say, in this group home I was not a favorite. In fact, I would guess that there were more than a few staff that wanted me to leave just so their job would be easier. Honestly, I don't blame them. I was and still am a handful, and occasionally I am too much even for myself.

                I used to tell people, that it was an accident. That I hadn't meant to fall asleep at her house and stay out all night. The reality is that it was my fault. I had no family of my own, just people paid to care about me and it felt so good to be a part of her family life. Even though eventually we grew apart and our relationship ended at that particular time in my life it was the most love and acceptance I had ever known.

                I slept with Stacy that night, no I don't mean that biblically although considering we were teenagers in love, and it was prom night I know I can't really deny that either. I slept beside her, cuddled up and I felt safe and loved for the first time. This wasn't a second hand family adopting me, or a foster family paid to keep me around, or even my biological family who I have never really known. It was better. This was a person who said she was all mine. I didn't have to share her. I didn't have to earn her love, she just loved me and that was that.

                I returned to the group home early the next morning to find all my belongings already on the porch. My need to for affection, and acceptance had cost me my home with the residential facility. If Stacy's family hadn't taken me in, and given me a home I don't know what I would have done. I am a survivor, of that I am sure but I can't tell you that my story would have the ending that it does had they not been so kind to me.

                I was now completely on my own. A lifetime of being cared for, for whatever reason was over. I had never had to keep track of anything, never been responsible for anything. I was a helpless child in every sense of the word. I had my disability check, and the kindness of my girlfriends family to pull myself up with. More than a lot of people like me end up with, but a tough start.

                I had no special talents to speak of. I had no job skills. I had no idea how to survive as an adult. The system had created a person incapable of self care, as it continues to do to this day. I was completely helpless. No, I guess that isn't true. I have always been a gifted manipulator as I am a very verbal person. Talking my way into and out of just about anything was a game to me. That wasn't the point. I was unprepared to have to earn a living, and manage my own finances.

                In a moment of spite, that minimum wage staff member made a decision that would change my life forever, and possibly could have ended it. I know I deserved it, but I wish it had gone differently.

                It is now fourteen years later and I am just now starting to mature. I know I have a long way to go yet but at least I am wise enough now to see the gaps, and learn from what it took to fill them.

                The person I credit most with how far I have come is my wife Michelle. Without her, I may have survived but I never would have thrived as I have. I am not always fair to her. I still have that selfish streak, and impulse control issue. For her, I always feel guilty. I always want to make it up to her. Hurting her, is hurting me. I have never had that connection with another person in my life. That might seem odd to some of you reading this, but its the simple truth. I don't usually feel guilt, or remorse for my actions. Everything I have ever done has been calculated with my own survival and comfort in mind. If others happen to benefit than so much the better, but it was not the original intent.

                Our life together started with a selfish act on my part. I had recently broken up with or was broken up with a girl I had been dating for about a year. I was angry, and I was alone. I don't like being angry, and I cannot tell you how much I hate being alone.

                At the time I met her, I was an assistant manager at McDonalds. My crewperson for drive thru had called out sick so I was going to be working the window all night. In a moment of clarity I realized that I had the perfect opportunity to meet someone new. I didn't have to be alone! As a general rule of thumb, males are told "no" about 90% of the time when they ask a girl out. You have to be ok with rejection to really date I think. Knowing this, and knowing just how painful rejection is I had thought to myself "there must be a faster way, to get all the "no" out of the way at once". It hit me that working the drive through window could be my answer.

                Its speed dating. A girl comes through for her order and you get a chance to briefly chat while you help her. If there is a spark, awesome. If not, than you won't see her again most likely. The odd's of having to face someone who rejected you go down when you are one face in many in their day. They probably won't even remember telling you "no", or that you even asked! I had my solution so I put it into practice. I began asking every girl I was remotely interested in to go out on a date. Laugh if you feel the need, but I ended up with a few really fun dates with amazing girls AND a the American Dream as well.

                I remember my first impression of Michelle was that she was a school teacher. Thin wire glasses, hair up in a bun, and dressed professionally. She had the librarian or school teacher look down without even trying. I also remember the look of amused disbelief on her face when I asked her out in the window while she was trying to get her dinner. It is a look I have seen multiple times since.

                I hadn't expected her to say yes, or that she would want to do something that night. I was completely broke. I thought maybe we could still just hang out and have some fun talking so I kept our date. She ended up buying ME dinner and a movie, and we did do a lot of talking as well.

               

                What created our relationship was a shared pain. She had just lost her husband, and even though she didn't like him much by the time he died she was still used to having him around. What is that line again "I have grown accustomed to your face."? She ended up crying in my lap, on our first date. From the stress, from the relief that she wasn't alone, or because I had said something without thinking that started her off I can't remember.

                While it is true that I am a fairly heartless person when it comes to the feelings of others I had been trying to learn to act the part of what I considered a normal, caring man would be. What made him someone people wanted around. I couldn't feel for others like they seemed to be able to, but I could try to mimic and blend in. I once asked a priest if coming to church when you don't believe in god is wrong. His answer, fits well into my story. "Fake it, till you make it." is what he told me. I had made a decision a few years before that I would not be the person who hurt others intentionally. On accident, I still manage to do it quite often but never maliciously.

                It is actually a character that I started to play, with Joni McFarland. A different story, for another time but relevant so I thought I would mention it. I have been told many things in my life, but only a few have really stuck with me. One of the most important was something one of the group home staff told me. "Children who were abuse victims either grow up and hurt others, or they grow up and protect others even from themselves." I never wanted to hurt anyone, I didn't see the point. There was no value in hurting others, no direct benefit or gain for me and it just made life harder so I made a decision to be someone else.

                In my mind, at the time there were some things that were ok to do and others that would never be ok to do. My personal rules, that I alone gave to myself and that I alone choose to live by.

·         Never hit a girl, they get hurt enough

·         Never take advantage of people on purpose (happens enough on accident)

·         Never Lie (It's hard to keep straight, and everything comes out eventually)

·         Never hurt someone on purpose, unless in self defense

·         Always look after those you feel can't look out for themselves (there is no guarantee that anyone else will)

·         Always protect people when you can, You aren't like them and you never will be so why not help the ones that make the world better stay around so they can do so.

·         If you use someone, apologize as soon as you realize you did it and help them protect themselves from YOU.

·         Always use as many of the formal manners you can remember so that you are seen as polite and caring.

              

  Maybe my rules seem silly to you, my readers. For me, they were a mantra to staying safe and sane. They helped me feel safe in a world I couldn't control. The best I could do, was control myself.

               

                The reason this information was important was Michelle. She shared her story with me, in tears on my lap. A lot of it, I won't write because it is her story to share and not mine. She was hurt, many years by different people. She had self image issues as well. She was one of the most beautiful women I have ever had the pleasure of holding in my arms but she refused to see it. In tears she told me all of her hurt, it spilled out of her like a dam broke.

                Between innate sexual attraction, which is as my friend Lisa likes to say "a powerful motivator to get you involved", to her innocence , her pain and her need to be loved and protected I was honor bound to make her life better. I decided at that moment that maybe I couldn't be normal, but I could give her a normal life. I could make her happy. No one that gentle deserves the hurt she was in. Over the years I had decided that I wanted to be a protector, a guardian spirit for those who didn't have anyone else to look after them. I had found one person, that I could give everything for and to and that wouldn't chase me away when she was done with me.

                Was it love at first sight? No. It was lust at first sight, followed quickly by duty and commitment. There was also fear on my part. Fear of being alone, fear of just vanishing.  All  these things, I worked through in moments. One of the benefits of being an auttie. There aren't many, but the few that exist are really spectacular. The love did come, and even someone like me who had never known what it was, or that he could even really have it knew it.

                Love, real romantic love isn't at Hallmark stores. It isn't in things. It's a feeling of safety, of belonging. Its knowing that someone would put everything on the line for you without thinking twice for themselves. Love, is believing they won't leave you and vanish while you sleep. I didn't love her at first. I was constantly scared each day I watched her drive off to work and I stay at her home that she would change her mind by the time she got home and would realize she was so much better than I was.

                Its funny, my wife taught me how to make love and that is the story I share most often because it's a funny story, but also because it is a safe one. I am terrified as I write this that she will hate me for saying I didn't love her at first, that I didn't even know I could feel love but I am writing this anyway because I believe that I can trust her not to judge, but to accept me. Do I love her now? With all my heart, and all my mind. Do I still do thoughtless and selfish things? Yes. Do I believe I am worthy of her? Not on your life. I am working on it however.

                I can't tell you the moment I fell in love with my wife. When acting the part became living it. When what had always been a show for me, suddenly stopped being make believe and a heart I didn't even believe I had started to feel, truly feel for another person. Maybe I still don't have a heart, maybe she just lets me borrow hers. That actually made me smile, the thought that our love, our family is built around her strong heart that beats for both of us and helps mine learn the rhythm so it can beat in time.

                Whatever the case, I know that for her I can genuinely feel. It isn't an act, it isn't guess work. I am not constantly asking myself if I am doing this or that correctly, or am I showing the proper response because I don't have to. She knows me, and I know her. I know that any response I give her with my feelings for her behind it will always be enough even if I don't show it in ways others will understand.

                I thought that I was saving her. I thought that by devoting myself to her that I was finally going to matter to someone, and make their life better. I thought so many things. The reality is that she saved me. She gave me a life I still don't believe I deserve.  She gave me unconditional love, and has never tried to walk away even when things got bad. Over the years our roles have reversed.  She isn't the girl, crying in my lap before our date anymore with me offering strength.

                She is the strong one now, who guides me and shows me the right way to live and love every single day. Do I make mistakes, form attachments that I shouldn't, and generally end up in mischief more often than not? Yes. I probably always will. I know that she is the only woman, the only person for me though and that without her my life would be the sad shell it was to start with before she entered it. I let her have all my insecurities, my weakness, my mistakes, and my guilt. I give her everything I would normally hide because I trust her with everything. She is my protector, and guardian as I try to be for everyone else.

                Michelle taught me how to live. Second Life gave me a place to practice the skills I learned from her, but she was my teacher. She still is, as well as my lover, my friend and my wife. The reason I came to Second Life, was Michelle. I thought I had lost her and I was completely torn. I was trying to fill the emotional hole that her pulling away from me had left. I dated, I loved, and I played my games in that world because it felt safe to do so. What I learned was that there was no better match for me than my wife. No single person, could fill the space in my life left by missing her heart beating with mine, or her hand on mine.

                She said to me once, that watching women fall in love with me in Second Life helped her fall back in love with me in real life. That she fell in love with who I was in that virtual world. My limitations vanish there. I am confident, proud, and I have a charisma that I did not have in person in that world. I got angry at my avatar when she told me that. I hated him. I hated the person I was there, for stealing my own wife. How is that for an odd moment. I decided that I needed to be that man in the real world for her. That I could learn to be him, here in person. She deserved so much better than me, or at least the old version of me that I had to try.

                I am much more Asper now, than I was a year ago. I am much more Ayzriel now than I was a few months ago. I have taken what I learned about myself, and what makes me someone that feels worthy of her love and brought it into the real world.

                The next Marcus, may not have a Michelle. He or she may not have that special person who transforms their disability into a real life. In fact, I am the exception and not the rule. I keep getting myself into trouble, because I try to give to other women, what she gave to me. It doesn't work that way. You can't give someone your life as if it were a downloadable file. The thing that gave me the strength and confidence to change, grow and become who I am today was unconditional love and a willingness to stay in my life even when it was hard to do so.

                 What changed my life, was finding what made me normal.. and having her show me what made me exceptional. We can't give unconditional love as a company, but we can give our friendship and belief in our clients ability to achieve the same type of growth as I have with her.