Contemplation…

It has been a thoughtful week… thoughtful, as in a week full of thought.  I’ve decided (again??? eeesh) that it is okay to be me.

Let me start out by saying that I’m really not very good at reading people.  It took me quite a while to realize that there is a very reasonable explanation for this… Aspergers.  Not making excuses… some very amazing people are Asperger-ians… just stating facts.  It explains why I have a very unique sense of humor, why I can’t play poker (and why I’m not invited to several kinds of meetings at work) and why I don’t read people face to face very well.

This week one person who I have come to realize really is just poking me when he says stuff comments on my Hairless Hobbit Feet and my wicked cool fingerless gloves made comments again and then did the knuckle bump thing.    The knuckle bump thing gives it away… that and the fact that the first time he saw me wearing my Vibrams he told me the story about how he was out to dinner one night in town and he ran into the guy who invented them and was out trying to scare up support in one of the weirdest (keep austin weird) towns and one of the running-est towns around…

I’m still trying to work out the conversation earlier in the week when someone read my RA hands poem and made what I’m trying to decide if it was a snide remark or not… “Woo, people read what you wrote on the INTERNET…. what you wrote… on the INTERNET… wooo”.  That one really hurt.  I’m not entirely sure why it hurt, I really don’t fundamentally care what people think of me much anymore, but I am really proud of my poem.  I’m touched and proud and amazed that it touched so many people, that so many people like it.  I’ve had dead tree books published.  I’m not convinced more than 500 people have read most of them.  MOST of them I’ve never seen more than my advance on royalties.  I’m proud of them but… you know… yeah… this poem touched people and somehow that matters more.  I’m not sure if the person who commented was just poking fun or if that was really what they thought…

You, person who is such a putz that you are scared of me because of my scars, you can  bite me. I’m done with the whining, I’m done with hearing about how I give you nightmares just because I had my broken arm fixed and how my horribly deformed bumpy hands scare you silly.  Bite me.  I’m done letting your shallow criticism hurt me.

I’m really deciding more and more that the me that I am is okay.  It beats being some of the people I have been learning about this week.  Hurting people just because you can isn’t cool.

I kind of like me.  I haven’t always been able to say that.  I can now.  And that’s a good thing…