SEEKING

All my life I have been seeking.  I haven’t always known what I am looking for, it’s more of a feeling that there is something I need to find out.  And so, throughout life when things have become too much I have sought the peace and tranquillity of being alone, and many times I have thought longingly of living in a cave somewhere, well away from people – except I’d need my bed, and a fridge and freezer!  Television? I can do without that but internet?  That’s a must. And suddenly in my imagination my mountain cave has become a modern apartment with all mod-cons… and a distinct lack of the peaceful quietness I need.

I’ve seen this mountain cave as a place not only of peace and quietness but of safety.  I am autistic and I do not do well when there are a lot of people around me, and life experience has taught me that feeling safe is something that can change in a single heartbeat.

I eventually found my place of safety and, for the last 2½ years, I’ve been living there.  During this time, my seeking turned in a different direction.  This time it travelled inwards.  My physical self was safe, but what about my emotional and spiritual self?  And that desire for the mountain cave (with the very necessary comforts, of course) returned. 

But the Mystic, when she retreats into the cave does not take with her anything more than she needs for her survival.  Her journey is within herself, and all the fluffy comforts we have a tendency to expect in life can be distractions. 

My thoughts turned within almost instantaneously when a friend asked me, two years ago, who I am without my wounds.  That question dropped me onto very rocky ground as I realised that I had absolutely no idea.  I began seeking answers and what I found triggered so many of my insecurities, but in writing about them in my book Hidden In A Dark Place I thought I had laid many of them to rest. 

But that was only the first stage.

A year ago I found my cave.  It is an old cottage that had fallen into disrepair and needed a whole heap of work to bring it into a liveable condition.  As the owners have gradually rebuilt this cottage, I have found that a further shedding of the things I do not need to take with me has been necessary.  I first sought knowledge as to why I don’t feel secure, and discovered that the answer was buried in the questions about why I always feel different, an observer and not a participant of life. That answer was in the confirmation of my neuro-divergent traits.  I am different – yet, comfortingly, I am not unique.  These traits were like pebbles underfoot that made my world, the path I walked on, feel rocky and insecure.  As I named these differences: aphantasia, SDAM, anauralia, alexithymia and more, and learned to understand them, I found an acceptance of self that I’d never realised could be mine and that rocky path became easier.

I am ready to step into the next phase of my life. 

I am ready to step into my cave and hopefully to seek answers to questions I have not yet asked myself.

Life holds some beautiful synchronicities.  As I made these realisations, I received a message from the owner of the old cottage, my so-called ‘cave’, giving me a date I can move in. 

I do need to check the internet situation though – I live in a rural area and internet coverage can be dodgy!  And I need to buy a fridge.