August: A Month I use to Dread…
“August rain: the best of the summer gone, and the new fall not yet born. The odd uneven time.”
August has always been my least favorite month. As a child, August meant the return to school. The free days of summer quickly passed, and the dreaded complexities of the school days arrived. I hated school for different reasons than the other students. School was a foreign land full of bullying, communication errors, and educational difficulties. School meant confinement from the freedom of outside. School meant change, and change is chaos for me. Each new school year began with me trying to learn a new lexicon of slang and mannerisms. September of my childhood was a prison of the structure, confinement, and restrictions of school.
Summer as an adult is a labyrinth with pitfalls in every direction. I never seem to make it out. Gone are the carefree days of youth, replaced with forlornness. Summer’s highlight is mission trips – SALT Serve and Maryland FCA, a brief pause on my remoteness to serve others, to love others, and to make disciples. Summer is an awkward time for my complex relationship with social events. With Asperger’s, I can’t comprehend how to have a social life. I don’t know how to create a social calendar. I can’t understand when or when not to call up someone to do something. It is exhausting, crippling, and paralyzing.
SALT Serve - Germany with Kerri (fellow SALT board member) with Wings of Faith Families, Summer 2022
Those with Asperger’s understand this ritual very well, outsiders may find it simply foolish. I navigated through a world that I still can’t fully understand. Is it ok to call someone to invite them for a burger or to an event? Or do you wait for them to call you? What is the right approach? So many times I wait and wait. My social media is full of others gathering; I am an outsider looking in. Strange, that loneliness seems to bother me. As a child, summers were free, and loneliness was my friend. I loved wandering alone in the small town I grew up in. My family had gatherings, and I was always off to myself exploring wherever I was.
As an adult, I explore on my own still. Roaming the early morning to find the right place to capture the sun rising. I join my family for vacations. I am invited to events, gatherings, and celebrations. Sometimes, I will skip the event last minute for the most insignificant reason, because I have not rehearsed enough conversations, or I fear the exhaustion afterward. These may seem trivial, but to me they are petrifying. I become immobilized from the fatigue of over-thinking what will go wrong or right. Unlike the summers of yesteryear, full of freedom, exuberance, and laughter, summer has become a mythical snarl of loneliness, isolation, and solitude. September ushers in the security of routine, structure, and pattern. I dread the coming of May and the beginning of summer, but mission trips are an oasis in a desert of long days of seclusion.
Central Maryland FCA - ALL ABILITY Camp Summer 2022
It is hard to wrestle with the changing of seasons, but my insurance is in God’s plan for me. He made me wonderfully in His image. He knows every hair on my head. He is always with me. He sent His Son to pay the debt for my sins. He sent a helper to guide my plan. Although, I know this in my mind, but shamefully I don’t always feel it in my heart during times I struggle with the afflictions that He wonderfully weaved into my being.
Liya Music Camp - Court Street United Methodist 2022