Sand Castles by the Sea

I want to vent a bit. I had a good conversation today. Started the process of maybe making a friend. And I hate that by tomorrow it will be gone. The issue stems from autism - specifically my own lack of "autobiographical episodic memory." Episodic memory is memory of stuff that happens to me. In simple terms, it means I forget almost everything that happens to me... as well as almost everything I learn about other people... within a day or two of it happening... and, perhaps worse, I forget any emotion or feeling that was associated with any of those events.

So the conversation I had today dies today. Even if I were to write it down word for word, the emotions would be dead by tomorrow. It would be like reading someone else's journal.

And I hate it.

I mean it's great to forget things sometimes. To be able to help someone process horrific events in their life and then not be scarred from it. To be able to survive abuse. To be able to wake up smiling when the night before I felt like all hope was gone.

But I hate it, because I know it's going to hurt me. I'm going to try to build a simple friendship and most likely it's all going to come crashing down since there will never be a solid foundation.

I had a thought not long ago that I have never made a friend. I'm so terrified of people and hurting them and getting hurt that I don't even try to really make friends. It's always someone else making friends with me. Which makes me wonder if I even can.

Maybe?

I hate that I can't remember people from my past. Maybe I have made friends. Maybe they were good friends. Maybe they've even been close to me. Except that I have no memories at all. I probably hurt all of them or made them run away. Or forgot they existed and neglected the friendship until it died.

I tried to capture some of the feelings. So here's a poem-ish thing. 

FYI this is NOT a build me up moment. I know that God makes everything right in eternity, that He is there for me personally, and that the people who are willing to be there with me in spite of the mess that is me are the people meant for me... but the poem doesn't address that. It's sorta depressing and sad. If you want something uplifting or if you need perspective or hope or peace you're gonna have to read a different post.

Sand Castles by the Sea

From the day I woke to living

Til each night I go to sleep

I find myself surrounded

By the dark and angry deep

And then I'm alone with sand

Castles I can build

With walls and turrets rising

Some of them are beautiful

Sublime

Others built too close to shore

Are touched by waves and there no more

Just moments after laying

The foundation

And then

A person stands there next to me

We build a castle by the sea

He says that's sweet

Let's build it higher yet

But each night

My island sinks beneath the tide

Castles don't build higher

Tomorrow comes

And then I'm alone with sand

The person that was next to me

He builds his castles inland

From "stone" and "steel"

And love and hopes and dreams

And next door

There's a castle built by someone else

There's a city

There's a world

Of everyone but me

Who builds castles

While I build sand castles by the sea

The castles that they build

All grow and rise and fall

Each changing as the days or years go on

The simplest ones are stone or mud

Made only days before

The grandest are of gold

Forty fifty years made tall

And everyone is building

Friendships as they talk and laugh

Lovers as they smile

Strangers as they pass upon the street

Castles made of hopes and dreams

Are built in every moment

With every single person that they meet

There's only sand upon my island

No mud or gold or steel

Which makes me think that maybe

None of those are real

Well maybe they are real for all of them

But not for me

I've learned that castles built inland

Can last for ages

That even huts of mud or sticks

Can last for weeks or years

Really?

No matter how I pile up sand

It falls

Even if I fall asleep 

Inside a massive sheltered keep

With walls built tall by many hands

When morning breaks it's gone

And then I'm alone with sand

The people come and go with time

Some build a day or three

But no one ever sees the castles

Drown beneath sea

They think they're built 

Of stone or mud or steel

But mud and stone and steel

Don't disappear

Which means it's me

Perhaps we build a castle

You of wood and I of sand

And days go by and then we meet again

I have no answers to your stories

No insight to your mind

No feelings for your hopes or fears or dreams

No castle made of memory

No proof we ever met

Nothing left but sand beside the sea

So who would spend their days

Building castles that can't be

Except for me?

It's hard to hope that someone

Would choose to live on sand

When others offer mud or stone or steel

It's hard to watch as people build just once

Then walk away

Because sand castles aren't things

They understand

It's hard to watch my castles wash away

Sometimes I end up crying 

As the tide comes in

And then I'm alone with sand