Loneliness

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Even the smallest person can change the course of the future. I'm so small and skinny, but I'm changing the world just by being nice every day!

I l-o-v-e Tolkien. So much wisdom imparted through fantasy. And C.S. Lewis. And George MacDonald (writer from mid-1800's who was C.S.Lewis's inspiration). I find my loneliness helped by my "book friends" --for lack of a better term. I once told hubby that my books are my best friends and he said, "yeah, that's because you have no real friends." I find people tiring and so easy to offend no matter how hard i try. Friends in books take me to a different world. In that world, i become friends with them without rejection. It is even believable that i too might be competent--even excellent--in such a world. It gives me some relief from this world where i always feel stupid even though i know i am intelligent in I.Q. points. I.Q. does not necessarily translate into feeling adequate or skilled when one struggles socially.

I also love memoirs of people who speak to my soul with their writings--L.M. Montgomery's journals were published a few yrs ago and wow, her many books were just the tip of the iceberg to what she wrote in her journals! I also found a kindred spirit in a bit of an unexpected place--Lillian Gilbreth, the wife of motion study engineer Frank Gilbreth (very well-known family of the early part of 1900's) and the mother in the books "Cheaper by the Dozen" and "Belles on their Toes." Back in the 1990's her memoirs were published. It was hard to find it in the local library--i had to get it in an inter-library loan from the engineering dept of one of our local colleges. Gilbreth and Montgomery both describe their struggles with anxiety in their personal writings and i enjoyed their writings so much as they offered a glimpse into their private joys and struggles. Not that you can diagnose someone from their journals--but both ladies described personal struggles common to girls/women with aspergers.

I too am on this forum for social interaction, at least til i make too many mistakes and get written off. However, it looks like ppl on her may be a bit more understanding of this??

I love Emily of New Moon, except for her discouraging and rage-inducing relatives. You could tell your husband that books are real friends!

I consider them real friends! I think if they help me not to be lonely that makes them real. Like the Velveteen Rabbit--love makes them real. Maybe someday...in Aslan's country if nowhere else...we will find all the best of our book friends and worlds, mingled with the best of our own worlds.

Are you talking about what happens at the end of C.S. Lewis's book the Last Battle? Because that wouldn't be so bad .

One of my favourite quotations is 'Fantasy is just another type of reality." Can anyone guess who made that up?

Yeah, isn't it awesome. One of my most favorite story endings. I know it is a kids' book, but i guess like a true aspie i am really a kid at heart. I sometimes have wondered if Lewis would be on the spectrum if he were alive today. He is so meticulous in his thought and writing--and the name "the Inklings," the name of the writing group of Lewis, Tolkien, and others of their contemporaries, always makes me smile. He is another author whose work has soothed my lonely soul.

I love that name, Inklings! I would like to start a club like that.

I've got no clue actually, and I feel like I've heard that somewhere before.

Yes, I think you have, because I made it up! Sorry, I should have put that it was a trick question.

I had a feeling. I think it was the "is just another" that was jogging my memory from the quote:
"Death is just another path, one that we must all take."

"...and then you see it...a fair green country..."
Even though I'm not nearly as lonely as I used to be, there's still moments when I catch myself wishing for a soulmate.

I like your quote.

--Taken from the editorial "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus."--

"Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood."

And in those times when I can "push aside that curtain and view the beauty and glory beyond," I am never, never lonely.

I like that! Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
I often feel like I'm one of the only people who actually believes in faeries, dragons, wizards, and magic.

Oh, no you are not! I am an adult now, so my belief in such is tempered with experiential reality...but I love to visit other worlds in stories, still; and I firmly believe there is a world beyond what we can see. We now see "through a glass, darkly..." C.S. lewis felt that what is beyond this world is far more real than what we see here and i am inclined to agree with him.