Yet another March

My tummy aches.

Not because of something I consumed, nor because of a bug. No, my tummy aches because I am sad. I am very sad. I am very sad a lot of the time.

If someone in person asks, ‘how are you?’, I’ll smile and say, ‘I’m OK’. Of course I will. What else would I say. But I am, in fact, very sad.

We have now entered into March. It is my birthday month. My 44th birthday. But I feel that is 44 too many. As I gazed at the floor today, my thought was ‘how much of this do I have to endure, for how much longer?’.  I’m fed up with it hurting.

The soil of my life is not fertile. Nothing can grow. I might see a shoot of something and feel hopeful, but it soon withers away. I can no longer have hope and for a while I’ve seen it as the lie that it is.

I know everyone struggles. But to my mind, most people have at least something they can lean on so that their struggle is just one aspect of their life, and they have other things they can use to get themselves through. Indeed, for many, a struggle is just a temporary visitor, like an unwanted bird landing in their garden eating their fruit.

I don’t struggle. I am struggle. The depth of my feeling, my thinking, means that darkness dwells within me, welded to my very soul. I look at my life and I don’t have anything to..to… use, to build with. Not one aspect which is a strength with which I can build anything, grow anything, have any semblance of a ‘life’.

It usually sad when someone passes, for what is lost. And when someone passes ‘too young’, it’s also sad because of what could have been. All the things they could have achieved yet in life. Suppose 44 was my last year, it would be no different should I have lingered on until 54, 74. Because between now and any of those, there won’t be anything. Just another 10, 30, blank pages. My life hasn’t meant anything to date and won’t mean anything going forward. I think that is clear to me now. Potential is not a word that applies to me.

Being autistic, with the difficulties it affords me puts me in a prison. Both physical and mental. I don’t like heading off to places on my own too far, even places I’ve been before, it’s a huge effort. My brain can’t even begin to compute going anywhere I’ve never been. I get too overwhelmed. So, I live here, in my room, in my town, sometimes making it to Exeter. You won’t see me much beyond by myself, only with company. Few would understand that. I’m sick of trying to explain my autism when it’s just absurd to neurotypical people. Any just to make me feel even worse, other autistic people can still live their lives, driving, travelling, going places on their own. Following ambitions and interests, succeeding at careers, having purpose. They can live with their traits and difficulties. I am my traits; I AM my difficulties. I am struggle.

The only times I’ve experienced ‘having a life’ is when a friend has accompanied me, like a carer.

But I am also human and have human needs. I can satisfy hunger and eat. I can satisfy thirst and drink. I can satisfy tiredness (mostly) and sleep. But to be human is more than just those things.

My deep-thinking brain, my sensitive little heart. I yearn so much for someone close, to hold and by held, to touch and be touched, to love and be loved. But I don’t have anything desirable about me. At 44, and have never had a relationship, to have seen everyone back away after a first date, I get it, I really do: There’s no reason for anyone to want me. To want me means to want struggle. I am struggle.

But to then be gay as well. Its’s such a flaky community where so few seem to want any kind of meaningful relationships. Most people just seem to be out looking for sex, interested only in bodies, not hearts and minds. I guess the history of shame and marginalisation sees LGBT people become fiercely independent and self-sufficient. I’ve been rejected because I don’t drive, because I don’t have my own place, and even because I’ve not got much dating history. I’m an embarrassing freak, and I am deeply ashamed of myself, and how my life is at 44 years old. I’m not good enough for anyone, they are all too good for me.

So, a significant chunk of my emotional, physical, psychological human needs, that can only be satisfied with another soul remain forever starved. It actually makes my very skin itch and burn and ache. I’m human, but a vital part of my humanity is denied me, and it makes me feel pathetic and immature. A wretched thing.

About a year ago I posted on social media to ask people, who had a God, to pray for me, to pray for a miracle that despite everything I am, I would now meet someone. Or, if not that, then pray I would just die.

Sadly, neither of those things have yet happened.