This is me….do you like what you see?

I long to be understood. Even deeper than that, I long to be accepted for who I am, every piece of me, by the people I have deemed most important in my life.

This is a very human desire, one that we all share, and there’s no shame in that. And yet, most of us won’t allow ourselves to acknowledge it, let alone take steps to fulfill it. Instead, we see it as weakness. Or we put too much stock in the belief that what’s important is how we see ourselves, that self-esteem or self-confidence are the keys to being truly happy and healthy. Or maybe we did take action, back in the day, and our hearts are scarred by rejection.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I do agree that how we perceive ourselves is ultimately more important than how other people perceive us. I just don’t think we should deny our basic human desire to be understood and accepted by others. These two concepts aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, you really can’t have one without the other. (I believe in psychology this is called “co-dependency”). Humans were created for relationship, to know and be known.

This includes knowing yourself, understanding who you are, why and how you became that way, and coming to a place of acceptance; which is really the first step to being known and understood and accepted by someone else. After all, how will you know if someone understands and accepts you if you don’t know who you are?

I have spent a great deal of time over the past year and a half exploring who I am and how I came to be me. One of the most significant aspects of this introspection is the fact that I have an Autism Spectrum Disorder (I’m an Aspie). There is no way to separate this from my identity, it colors everything about me – the way I think, the way I act, the way I speak and the words I choose, and most basically the way I interact with everyone around me and my world.

It’s been a fantastic journey so far. And naturally, the more I learn about myself, the more excited I become to share those things with my closest friends. (Just the fact that I can have close friends is one of the exciting things I want to share!) So I’ve decided to write them down.

I don’t have a title yet, but the format will be similar to an encyclopedia. This is actually an idea that has been rolling around in my head for the past couple of weeks; I was calling it a “friend manual” and making a list of things I want to include. Until earlier today, when a friend told me that I don’t need to make a book for other people to learn “how to deal” with me. So now I’m going to refer to it as “a guide to my cultural differences.” What do you think?

Or think of it this way:  when you put on a pair of colored glasses, the world becomes tinted by that color (let’s say blue, since that’s my personal favorite). When you look around you, everything is blue. Well, being an Aspie is kind of like wearing a pair of Aspie-colored glasses; the difference is, you can’t take them off.

This is the part where others come in. If you’ve never put on a pair of these glasses, you have no point of reference for understanding the world the way I’m trying to describe it to you. Unless I find ways to use points of reference we both share, like tinted glasses for example. This book is going to be filled with definitions and metaphors; it’s going to be a road map of sorts – not to understanding Autism but to understanding me. And it’s as much for my own benefit as it is for yours; maybe even more so.

Also, I firmly believe that my relationships will become stronger and more enjoyable if my friends come to understand me on an “Aspie-level” the way I’m learning to understand myself. This book is going to be my way of saying, “Ok friends, this is me….do you like what you see?”

December Daily Day One: FLU and Friends

Yesterday was the beginning of the week, and the beginning of the last month of this year. Quite a significant day in my book. I was hoping to write about it, tell you all about my Thanksgiving trip, grocery shopping for the week and my new menu adventure, share a few ideas for Christmas gifts I want to make….instead, I woke up at 2:30 with the F L U.

That’s right friends, I was not well. I won’t go into the gory details, we all know what comes with the nasty stomach flu. Not a pleasant experience.

I spent the first half of the first of December laying in bed in pain (when not in the bathroom being sick), and the second half on my too-short couch in pain (but fortunately mostly done being sick). On the bright side, I was blessed by my hero for the day (my friend Chelsea) who brought me some flu fighting necessities:



She also brought me two other drinks and two bananas! By the time my pumpkin time rolled around my stomach was feeling better and my headache was going away, so I managed to get a little sleep and woke up feeling tons better. You read it here first friends – to fight the flu you need crackers, soup, Tylenol, and electrolytes. And some TLC from a friendly teddy bear, lots of blankets, soft pillows….a friend or spouse to get all this stuff for you!

I admit that upon waking this morning I was exhausted from my battle; however, I was thankful I had taken the day off work to recover, and I’m ready to get back at it tomorrow! This was by no means the way I wanted to start this month, but I made it thru, and it’s all uphill from here!

Spread Your Wings

This week for Mixed Media Monday I want to share this canvas I made for my friend Grethe. Come August, she’s moving about six hours away from here, which has been her home her entire life; although she’ll have her husband and puppy, she will be, for the very first time, too far away from her parents to drive over and visit. She has a close relationship with her mom, not quite as fun as Gilmore Girls but one that I find fascinating nonetheless.

It was this new adventure that inspired the design for her canvas. I wanted her to have something fun and cheerful, but also encouraging and meaningful. I wanted it to be something she could look at when she was homesick and remember that all journeys begin with that first (and sometimes most difficult) step.

Somehow I doubt this small token of my appreciation of her and her friendship the past six months said anything quite so profound; but I really like how it turned out! I used a fun stamp I got at Paper Pals (the girl), cutting out each piece on different colors and patterns. Then I put her on a chipboard butterfly so she’d really be able to spread her wings. The background was just a simple patchwork of colors, and of course a few pieces of washi tape for interest.

I already miss Grethe, I miss our lunches together and having someone to throw things at when I was in a playful mood (I never did throw anything, but it was nice to have the option). And I miss how safe I felt with her, although “safe” isn’t exactly the right word….just, more myself than with most people I guess.

I know that God has a great plan for my friend, and I imagine one day we’ll reconnect and our kids can have a play date. At this rate her kids will probably be old enough to babysit mine [smile]. I’m excited for her new adventure and proud of her for being willing to try – to spread her wings and see how far she’ll fly.

Kiss the Cook

Living alone, I cook for myself most of the time, which means if I don’t really feel like eating I probably won’t. But. I love cooking. It’s interesting and relaxing, and no matter how tired or restless or just bleh I feel, eating a meal that I’ve taken time to prepare always makes me feel a little better.

So today, in honor of “Culinarians Day,” (and my younger brother Noah, who is a cook on Navy subs), I’m going to share with you a link I found to the Top Ten Most Difficult Recipes to Make. If you happen to try any of them, I’d love for you to leave a comment and let me know how it turned out!

Also, I would like to share with you a poem about cooking something other than food, “A Recipe for Friendship.”

A Recipe For Friendship

Take a cup of understanding,
Add a smile that’s warm and true;
Then some sunshine, tears of course
(A dab of these will do.)

Mix in some specially happy times
And secrets shared together,
Then strengthen with real loyalty
Thru fair and stormy weather.

Blend in deeds of thoughtfulness,
A way of being nice;
Warm with generosity
And top with good advice.

Serve with cool remembrance
Of joys that know no end,
And you’ll taste the sweetness others find
Who have you for a friend!

Not Such A Small World After All

Anais Nin once said that, “Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.” Seems like a lot of pressure to put on a new friendship, creating a whole new world within a world; but what a magnificent blessing those worlds become!

I don't know much about Anais Nin, other than she was a French-Cuban writer who published her journals spanning more than sixty years of her life. (If I were to publish my journals, anyone who read them would get so lost on the rabbit trails they’d never make it back!) However, I do know that she was right about this one thing at least – that each friend represents a world in us. I am blessed with many worlds myself. So let’s explore this concept together, shall we?

Think about it this way:  how many of you have your “work friends” and then your “church friends”? Or if you don’t have a job yet, your “school friends”? Don't go to church, then perhaps your "weekend friends." You have old friends and new friends, friends from college, and friends that come in pairs (you and your spouse are friends with him/her and spouse). Some worlds never cross, other times worlds collide. Once in a while one explodes. Some people have so many they command their own solar system.

It's a complex system we create for ourselves. Add to that the varying degrees of friendship:  acquaintance, friend, close friend, best friend….“just” friend. Wouldn’t you agree that something as unique as a snowflake and as complicated as a junior high romance definitely qualifies as having its own “world”?

This idea is nothing new. From the first, God designed us to be social: “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him” Genesis 2:18. And so the first world within a world was created. English poet John Donne said that “No man is an island,” referring to the absolute truth that humans are not created for isolation. Now we have social media sites and text messaging to keep us in touch with those worlds in a matter of seconds.

As I began to reflect on the worlds that make up my own (in preparation for writing a special “happy birthday blog” for a friend), I couldn’t help but see the concept of “world” in a new way. In fact, several of my favorite quotes are now even more profound. For instance, Winston Churchill noted that “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on” [italics mine]. Or the Dalai Lama saying, “With realization of one’s own potential and self-confidence in one’s ability, one can build a better world.” This is true not only of the world within us, but all the worlds born from our meeting new friends.

So I will leave you with one of my favorites, a quote from Mahatma Ghandi, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”

Will the REAL Mellena Mae Please Stand Up?

I’ve really enjoyed writing posts every day. I’ve learned a lot of interesting things, practiced my craft regularly, and opened doors to several great conversations with my friends and family. Today I wanted to write about one of my favorite topics – my tongue. But first, I have something I need to process.

I’m the kind of person who processes things by talking about them. This can be done in several ways – phone calls, texting, chatting on Facebook or some other instant messaging program, and of course face to face. However, those all involve other people, and I often find myself alone. So I write.

I want you to know who I am, and I want to be accepted for it – the good, the bad, and the in-between. I am a child of God, a daughter of the King of Kings – that makes me a Princess, right? I am a writer, a teacher, a sister, and a friend. I am an artist. I am a genius. And I am autistic.

Those are the good things. But I am also a liar, a cheater, a manipulator. I’m lazy. I’m scared. I hurt people’s feelings. I don’t always follow thru on my commitments. I don’t always try my hardest. I don’t live up to my potential. I push people away. I’m not perfect. And I am alone.

I know that if we’re honest with ourselves, we can all make lists like these. We all have attributes and attitudes we don’t particularly like about ourselves, things we’d like to change. Some of these things are choices; other things we’re born into, and we have to choose to accept them, learn how to integrate them into our lives.

For the past six weeks or so, I’ve been learning to do this myself, to identify which parts of me are choices that I can change, and which I need to accept and learn to live with. Yesterday I saw, for the first time since leaving that cave, how hurtful one of my choices could be, so I changed it; I chose instead to walk the other way.

At the time, I thought it would be enough. But I was wrong. It was a great step in the right direction, one I neither regret nor intend to abandon. I will continue moving forward in this new direction, and it will make me stronger. God will make me stronger. However, the damage was done; I hurt someone, and I can’t take it back.

There are two things I’ve learned from the loss of this new friendship, and I want to share them with you. First, I learned that lies are like a disease; once you infect someone, breaking their trust, you hurt them deeply and it takes time and patience for that wound to heal. Even when it does, you may not be allowed back in.

Second, I learned that I’ve let loneliness create a giant hole in my heart, and I’ve been trying to fill it with the wrong things. I want so badly to feel a connection to other people that I’ve focused my time, thoughts, and energy on friendships. Meanwhile, God is standing next to me saying, “What about Me?”

I’m not saying I should give up on my friends, ignore everyone I know, and become a hermit. I’m saying I need to find my strength and peace in my relationship with God, let His supernatural presence and love fill that hole. Only then will the friends He brings into my life be a blessing.

So when I feel overwhelmed with loneliness and it fills me with anger, instead of turning to Facebook or my phone to ease that pain….I want to go to God.