I’m apparently writing. I ate some food late, and while I was cooking, I was pacing. I was thinking, I was writing. I seem to burning a little brightly right now; that may explain the frustration. I guess. I’m not sure about that, but maybe the burning somehow intensifies the frustration, the way it sort of intensifies everything. Not everything has to be written for print, but it is interesting that you have suddenly shifted that way. The wind has changed.

So I’m cooking, and I’m pacing, and I’m thinking while I’m pacing, and I’m writing while I’m thinking. I paced while I ate the bowl of noodles, thinking and writing. And playing with the cat. But still the thinking, it is writing thinking, and not just writing thinking, outward writing thinking. Thinking about writing that is meant to be read by others, as opposed to all this other writing which has just been for myself.

It is weird to be burning without the tension. I thought that burning brighter was related to the tension, that the increased energy was coming from all the stress my body was creating. But right now, my body isn’t stressed; I don’t feel tense, or I didn’t until I started to think about it. Pacing is pretty tense; not being able to sit down has been happening a lot lately. Maybe the tension manifests itself in other ways than a balled up gut and shoulders up past your ears, waking up in a panic for no reason. Maybe it’s pacing, and thinking, and thinking that turns outward.

The last time I turned outward, I was dating. And then things got weird, not with them, but with me. I started feeling possessive of my time, of doing things by myself. I don’t feel like the other person was asking for too much, and they were definitely someone who was willing to be flexible, willing to give me my space. But I wanted all of it, all of the time, all of the things. I didn’t want to go out and do things with someone else; I wanted to do things by myself, and it felt unfair to be in a relationship with someone if that was what I really wanted.

It was never a question of “if” I was going to start dating again; the “when” came sooner than I expected, but it went ok. It was actually going really well. So well that it was startling to realize that this nice good thing that was happening was not what I wanted at all. See, I wanted to write about this, and now it is happening. Let’s lay things out here.

I always wanted to be in a relationship, always wanted to be in love, but I wanted it for the wrong reasons. I was a creature of shame. My parents made me so ashamed of myself that I denied who I was and pretended to be a different person, tried to be the person I thought they wanted me to be. But if I could find someone who loved me, then I could use their love as a replacement for my lack of self-love. I could feel good about myself because they loved me.

There are so many problems with this situation, beyond the fact that you buried your true self in the basement when you were a toddler. You will be forever trying and forever failing to be someone who doesn’t actually exist as you try and guess what your partner wants or needs; meanwhile you will be denying your own wants or needs because you don’t want to step out of character, so the best way to do that is to be the wallflower, the shy one who has no preference.

It took a lot, a lot of hard work, a lot of writing that other people will never read, but I changed. I learned to love myself, to give up the shame. It didn’t hurt that there was no one left, either to love me or to be ashamed for. Embracing that child that I buried all those years ago started a healing process that ultimately allowed me to give up the shame altogether, to not live in a constant process of second-guessing whether what I was thinking or doing would be seen as good or bad, which then led me to be able to start unwinding and letting go of all of that anxiety. Anxiety my body still inflicts on itself from time to time, without reason or cause.

But through it all, the idea was to get to a point where I could take my show on the road. It’s one thing to embrace the child you were so ashamed of you hid them from the world; it is another thing to stand up next to someone and be confident enough in who you are, be enough in love with yourself that you don’t feel the need to change, to shapeshift. It’s one thing to say you’ve unmasked; it’s another to sit and meet a stranger and not change. And then I found myself dating, while I’m going through the seasonal tension that hits me every fall, a traumatic response ringing through the decades, and I find myself burning bright. But I didn’t shapeshift. I remained the same. I passed the test.

But something was making me upset. And this part I’m still teasing out; I’m not sure what the answer is, or what even the problem is. The problem may be autism, the difference in wiring. But as I tried to track down what it was that I did want, and what things I didn’t want, it seemed more and more like what I didn’t want to do was spend time with other people, that I wanted to spend time with myself. And then, like I said, it didn’t seem fair to feel like that and be in a relationship with someone, so we ended it.

But it was a radical shift for me. I loved being in love, though now that I think about it, I love when something has my focus and attention. All of the women I mooned over gave me tunnel to escape from the the world through. I never thought that I would hit a point where I’m not really interested in seeing other people. Any other people. But here we are.

And this is weird, as well, because usually my outward writing has been more seductive; I want to make the reader love me. I don’t anymore. Well, I don’t want them to hate me, but I know I have no control either way. But now I’m turning outward without looking for love, because I don’t need it. I’ve already got it.