An autistic wedding anniversary

Sometimes, I lose my words.  This may be one of those times.  Why?  Because our relationship is tough to describe at times. 🙂

True to (my Aspie) form, we met online.  This was 17.5 years ago, back when there was still an air of stigma surrounding online dating and relationships.

But we did it anyway, not caring what anyone else thought (another then-unknown Aspie trait).

We lived together for a long time before legally tying the knot (almost 10 years).

Eight years ago today, we walked down the aisle.  Our wedding was nothing short of beautiful.  We did it Our Way, throwing every conventional custom out the window (yet another Aspie trait).  It was a mystical, magnetic evening, pulsating with a thick, intense energy.  The veil between the physical and spiritual worlds was thin, and everyone felt it.  The world–indeed the universe–smiled upon us that evening.

The ceremony itself was short and sweet, covering many bases, crossing multiple cultures, and laced with symbolism at every turn.

All of our special interests received a head-nod – my partner’s Freemasonry and ancient Celtic mysticism; my astrology, numerology, and blending of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Paganism, and of course, a love of color and music.  All of the symbolic features were woven in with subtlety (again, like “good little” Aspies). 🙂

I put the “soundtrack” together, using intuition and creativity, and seeking variety.  The father-daughter dance (one of the few traditions we retained) took place to Gordon Lightfoot’s “If Children Had Wings”, an early childhood favorite.  My partner’s and my dance was backdropped by Mazzy Star’s “Fade Into You”, a reference to one of our favorite movies.  (Movie references, I have learned, are yet another Aspie characteristic–and that has been one of our favorite ways to communicate throughout our relationship.)

Our marriage, like our relationship before that, has had its ups and downs.  We’ve been through periods of peace, and periods of turmoil.  We’ve known order and chaos, yin and yang.

There is no “head over heels, OMG he makes my heart pound and my head spin” kind of feeling.  What we have is even better than that: a calm, balanced, and comfortable life together, interwoven and intertwined.  We retain our own separate identities, but we are merged into a usually-healthy partnership.

We may or may not understand each other’s quirks, but we generally respect them.  We tend to ebb and flow together, in a mutual existence.

It’s not exciting, per se.  “Exciting” is overrated anyway; it comes with baggage and instability.  I wouldn’t want the emotional roller coaster that “excitement” brings.  I’ve been there and done that, and it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.

I’d rather have what I have: a peaceful, predictable, comfortable, intertwined and interwoven co-existence.

What did we do today?  We went out and picked up a bookcase and a filing cabinet.  Now we can finally unclutter the home office, where up until now, the current bookcase space has been exhausted, leaving books stacked against the wall.  Now I can organize and classify them, which pleases me to no end (and it will bring my partner relief, too, because the room will be more tidy).  And then, after sunset, we walked around the neighborhood to admire the various home Halloween decorations, feeling like the world was celebrating with us.

Now THAT is exciting. 🙂