Dear Diary, I guess I’m back. I don’t know. I keep saying that I’m finally getting back to keeping this diary but then I seem to find every obstacle in my path preventing me from actually sitting down and writing anything here. So I’m not sure I’m going to say that I’m finally going to commit to keeping this diary, as I don’t want to “jinx” myself. Not that I’m superstitious, but I do seem to have what some might call, “bad luck”, whenever I have said I was going to be more diligent in keeping this diary. I still have every intention to keep it going, and I still have every desire to make this dairy a daily thing, but I guess I will just try to keep it current as often as I am able until maybe one day I can keep this diary on a daily basis.
Well, other than I am a terrible diarykeeper, what else is new? I suppose that there has been a number of things that have happened in my life since I last posted here.
Recently me, my husband, and our three youngest children made a trek out to western Oregon to see family. We were hoping to see some friends who live out there, too, but we were only able to see a small handful briefly while we were there We had hoped that our trip would have lasted a bit longer, but it ended up being shorter for this or that reason.
While we were in Oregon, that old familiar ache of homesickness crept back in, this time with a vengeance. I hate that I feel so miserable inside living somewhere else and that no matter how hard or earnestly I try, I cannot shake the homesick feeling and longing for western Oregon. I think, as much as I have worked hard (and in vain, it would seem) to convince myself otherwise, I think I am always going to long for the Willamette Valley. It’s always going to feel like “Home” to me.
Yes, I know that my home is wherever I make it. And I believe that to be true. I know it to be true. But I don’t think that I can’t also be sad inside and to miss my childhood home (geographical area) at the same time.
Anyhow. I’m still homesick. Moving on.
I think… ?
No, actually. I don’t think I am ready to move on from the topic of feeling homesick. It’s still too prominently felt in my life. It has never really gone away – Not in the nearly 15 years since I left home. It’s always been somewhere in my mind on a daily basis. But it’s not only a geographical area. It’s not necessarily my childhood home (house) or my home town that I miss. It’s also the life that I knew there and which I always thought and believed without any doubt through all of my growing up years that that was the life that I was going to have when I grew up and had a life of my own. It was my plan and expectation, from the time I was at least 10 years old, that I was going to live in the countryside. Even as a young adult, I didn’t imagine that I’d ever spend more than just a few years outside of the countryside. I knew as a young adult that it would likely be necessary for me to consider living “in town” (though still in a small town) if I couldn’t find somewhere to call “home” in the countryside sooner than later after I finished up nursing school and found work. I honestly thought that it wouldn’t take many years for me to be able to work hard and save up a healthy down payment to be able to buy some dirt. That was also 2007-2009. It was a recession and houses and properties were cheap, even for much of the west coast, where I lived, and which is well known for being expensive when it comes to buying a home or property.
I mourn that life I knew and loved during my growing-up years, and I mourn the losses that have come with unfulfilled life dreams and expectations. Was it naive for me to have assumed for all of my youth and my early adulthood years that life would blissfully go as I had planned? Yes, it was. I am strangely keenly aware of my own naivety. It is unfortunately a characteristic of mine that I have not been able to grow out of, but
A Reminder to Myself: You Are Too Easily Forgetful. Write Things Down!
This is beyond true about me. I am forgetful. One of the blessings of having autism is that I have an amazing long-term memory. I can remember in detail hours upon hours of events from a single day back to at least an age of being 21 months old. I can even tell you the date on the calendar of that day, the year, the places I was, the people I was with, the thoughts I had and the emotions I had at specific moments on that day. I even confirmed these events with several relatives who were there on that day and event but whom I had never talked about the memory with until I was at least 17 or 18 years old. They had no idea that I remembered that day at all. They were even more astonished that I reminded them of details they knew but had forgotten. Yeah, my long term memory is almost like my own personal superpower. Well, sometimes it’s a blessing anyways. I also remember far too many things about my early childhood and toddlerhood that I wish I didn’t. Sometimes having a brilliant long term memory is a curse.
My short term memory, on the other hand, well… that is a completely different story. I guess it is common for women especially who have autism to have a really weak short term memory. Hi, hello. It’s not me. My short term memory is the problem – not me.
I forget things very fast if they don’t make it to my long term memory. I’ve been trying to help myself remember things better for many years, but I have struggled to find a way that I can remember to regularly document things I want to remember and keep a record of. Thus, journaling was once my big obsession. My diary wasn’t just a diary, it was my memory – a lifeline between me and my ability to remember and focus on the good things in my life whenever depression has tried to destroy me from the inside out.
This is one reason why I need to keep this diary – or any diary for that matter. I need to be able to have a documented record of the good things in my life so that when I am struggling extra hard with depression I can show myself proof that the depressive thoughts in my mind are lying to me about how hopeless my life is.
I need to keep this diary. I need the reminders. I need the written and visual reminders that I can return to and be able to remember all the good things not if but when the hard times come again. And they will. They always do. It’s one of the only things I know I can count on in this life – adversity is part of the adventure of this mortal sojourn of mine.
Anyhow, I want to keep this diary as best as I can for these reasons and many others. I honestly don’t know how consistent I can be at keeping it updated, especially because my Attention Deficit Disorder has gotten worse this past year so I’m still trying to find a treatment that works to help with that. But I am just going to do my best to post however much I can, however often I can until I can do better.
