To put a slightly less happy reflection on the day... I feel bad because I was too out-of-it to remember social rules yesterday morning -- I totally forgot to tell my mother/brother that I love them and that I hope they'll have a good time. I'm worried that something bad will happen, and they'll die thinking I don't care or something. The 80s song "The Living Years" is permanently stuck in my brain, obviously. (If you've never heard it, I recommend finding somewhere to get a copy. It's really a beautifully sung piece, and has an important message.)

This is part of a very odd quirk I have. Both of my grandmothers passed on when my parents were only young adults. Nonna Gneri was murdered in a hospital just as she & mom were leaving the teenager-parent conflict phase, so there was a lot my mother never had a chance to say. "Bumbum" Mary died of colon cancer when my father was ~30; from what I understand, they were extremely close, but he had needed to focus on my health issues and thus probably wasn't there for her as much as he'd like. Plus both of my parents had the experience of losing a close friend to suicide after not being able to offer him support when he needed it.

So while I normally sneer at "emulating NT" stuff, in this instance I worry a lot that my autistic way of communicating means I am going to wind up with the same regrets that my parents have. Friends I haven't written back, family that I have trouble showing affection towards in a way they can instinctively understand... I knew this was a problem from early childhood -- that I wound up misdiagnosed as a sociopath says a lot -- but only in the last few years has there been a "word" for the difficulty.

This is one of those cases where I wish my family understood more about autism. For all my vigilance, there are still a lot of cases like Saturday morning, where I'm simply not able to compensate for the communicative barrier between us, cases where I temporarily fall out of touch with my father because I'm overwhelmed with life. Having them all be aware that it's not a lack of love on my part, but just not the way I naturally communicate would be a huge relief. I wish I had some clue of how to help them learn.

Okay, enough about that, I'm going to wind up depressing myself. I think maybe I will go "spontaneously" (well, for me -- meaning "I don't have a reason") call my father to find out what he has been up to. I don't feel up to exercising still, but it would be a good way to let him know I am thinking of him. (Especially as he called yesterday while I was out, and I haven't called him back yet.)