You are writing from your heart and soul, and this shit made me want to cry myself. I believe you are doing the right thing by letting go, and I hope that with time and a little patience you get your love back and better than expected. Take care

I really did want to hear what you had to say about the whole autism/Asperger/dad angle. It does go both ways, doesn’t it? If only we got handed the manual for life when we got here — or maybe a DVD, since we don’t learn to read right away.

Honestly, I don’t know if our connection is intact. I feel like I don’t know anything right now. I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. I’ve been avoiding work…I don’t want to have to face people and their questions. I bet some of them think this was a built-in breakup.

Hopefully, I’ll get more time during the day to post (that’s when I do most of my corresponding, truth to tell). I’m still working up my new desktop computer at home, spent most of the weekend migrating my stuff from my laptop 2 gigs at a time. Had a day off of work Monday, when I went to a doctor’s appointment in the morning, then drove down to Tacoma and took my mother to a doctor’s appointment, then drove her cat to the vet.

That’s gotta suck, Sam taking off like that. But it sounds like he’ll be OK once he’s had his respite, and since it seems like he’s got some life to experience (I *really* don’t want to allude to “growing up”, I hate that), this is probably a good thing. And your connection sounds intact, so you’ll just be remote for nine months or so, then you can pick up where you left off. I know what that’s like: the Object Of My Obsessions has been away for exactly that long (though she’s visited twice since then), and won’t be coming back this way til spring. I just have to make my peace with that.

I wanted to remark on your re-thinking your father and his disposition. That’s something I’ve had to deal with regarding my own father, what with the Alzheimer’s robbing him of his identity (and leading to his death five years ago). He was remarkable in ways I’m only beginning to understand, and his relationship to both myself and my mother is something I’m re-assessing in adult terms, and not just the simple experiences of my childhood. I wouldn’t say he was autistic, in the way I would describe myself; but I also wouldn’t say that he had any natural talent for parenthood, either.

What I’m saying is, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how my father didn’t prepare me for understanding the world. Now I’m thinking about how the rest of the world didn’t inform me of how to understand my father.