Ah well. Still got plenty of walking done. (Enough where I am maybe even at risk of a blister forming on my feet. Owwww.) Not nearly as intense, but better than nothing, at the very least. Sometimes, plans just have that tendency to go awry.
...And speaking of plans for work, at some point soon enough for it to not inconvenience them, I need to inform my parents that the staff meeting this Saturday is a potluck, so they can go buy something for it. (What, I...well I don't have the slightest of clues. Food? Food sounds good.)
Why we're randomly having a potluck, I don't know. Whose idea it was to have food before going into the water (a hilariously bad idea for strenuous aquatic activity, i.e., the very thing we're going there for), also no clue. But oh well. It is what it is, I'll live, and I'll quite enjoy the food. (It just seems so odd to suddenly do.)
On that day, I will need to sadly leave earlier than normal: 30-60 minutes sooner ideally, because there's a bike race that day. (What time, dunno, but rather safe than sorry.) But with me aware of it in advance, I can plan accordingly and adjust things so where it's not a major inconvenience. (I'll probably be spending time with my S.O. so they might complain I have to leave so soon though. Sowwy.)
...On that note, that tangent's an excellent segue into a personal rant at my family. Last night, they wanted a mini-impromptu family night, watching Agents of Shield. No problem, right? That's a show we all want to watch. Of course. They either thought this idea up on the spot or otherwise failed to notify me of this in advance, expecting me to be ready to watch it in like five minutes.
This is not at all an unusual occurrence. What they fail to understand is that I am meticulous. I think out everything even if I don't look like I do. I absolutely need, need, something like six hours' warning in advance at absolute minimum (at least ideally), specifically because I plan my days out in advance.
Springing things on me last-minute (and thus, by extension, ruining my given plans) is a good way to sour my mood, as ideally I've got even more time than that: 12-24 hours if not even more is what I'd prefer to have ahead of the given time, so I can schedule things appropriately--clear my plate and leave nothing to be done during the given time.
When they ask me to do something...then they are asking me to do something during time I don't have cleared. Normally, this ends with me voicing discontent, but ultimately relenting. (And probably building the impression I'm not happy about watching the show. Half-true: I'm not happy, but it's for reasons unrelated to the show which is something I enjoy just...I enjoy it most of all when I am hyped up for it so springing me on it means I'm just in the wrong mood for it and thus I'm not going to enjoy it as much.)
This time, I bluntly told them "no", which I believe I vaguely alluded to yesterday.
The good from this: I genuinely, honestly feel that standing up for myself and not letting them roll over me is a step in the right direction, signifying my growth as an individual, because I'm letting it be known that, yes, I have desires that don't always coincide with theirs.
The bad from this: because I was distracted doing something else at the time, I didn't convey my motives FOR saying "no", so there may be consequences to me having done so. Among them, they may mistakenly believe my rejection equals an utter disinterest in the show, when that couldn't be further from the truth--I very much DO want to watch the show, I really do.
I just...want to watch it at a time where I'm not giving something else up TO watch it. This is ridiculously easy to do if I know about it in advance! I'll clear things up, making things happen all before, or in some cases, after the given time. My family doesn't know that I have a life.
They assume I'm wasting time, doing nothing, that I'm free--that what I've done isn't "real", and thus, it's meaningless, it holds no value, it's something which should be easy to give up. They think it an addiction and that there's nothing to be gained from it.
But I'm very much not doing that. The connections I've made have fundamentally changed my life on the most basic level, in ways I never would have known were possible otherwise. It was someone online who tipped me off to me being bipolar. It was people online who helped me realize I was trans. It was interacting with people online which made me realize why I had lost touch with people in person, that my autism meant I could be eloquent to them but awkward in-person.
I met my significant other online. And while we're working on slowly changing that, for the time being, we're still that way. (The closest we've come to each other is live webcam footage of one another without audio.) The feelings I feel for them are real, not lies, not me deluding myself. I've experienced me deluding myself (also online by the way since that never happened to me in real life), and I know what me deluding myself is--this isn't that.
All of it. It's real. It's me. I CAN be free...but I need to schedule it. Because otherwise I use every minute of every day. And I do make actual use of that time. I am doing things like interacting with people, both to give them advice and ask for advice. I do research on subjects, I try to figure out what I want to do and also how to make what I want to do become more realistic.
I connect with others. I may waste some time online, yeah, sure. A little bit here and there for games I do. But I mostly to be honest do those just as a hobby, as a personal thing for fun which is a small pastime, a small thing which takes less than an hour per day and whose main function is honestly to serve as a distraction from my true time. (It's much better for them to think I'm playing a game than it is for them to realize, say, I'm researching...oh, you know, something like GRS? Or whatever term you'd use.)
I can't communicate with them well in-person about these things. Aside from some of them being forbidden for obvious reasons (bigoted father), there's the fact that I have autism and I just don't communicate well especially when interrupted and my family doesn't know how to NOT interrupt. They don't know how to just listen. And for me to talk. That's what I need people to do. That's why this blog works. It's because I just talk. And then when I've finished. Then they can ask. Then they can launch inquiries. Then they can seek clarification.
But that never happens. I just. I function best when I can talk. And I can't talk to them because they just don't understand that the way I talk requires certain conditions they don't allow me to fulfill. They mean no ill will. It's not like they obsessively talk themselves. It's not like they're people impossible to get a word in with...for normal people. A normal person could communicate with them just fine.
Yet in spite of them knowing that I'm the way I am (all of them have at least a passing awareness of my autism even if only half know it explicitly by that name), they don't seem to understand, to realize, the natural consequence of what I am, being this.
I communicate in words, not speech.
The internet is where I do words.
So it's where I have gained my life experiences.
It is where I have lived my life.
It is the place where I know, where I feel at home.
And in a sense...it is the place I intend to stay with.
Because while to them, none of this is real...
...For me. They're honestly less real than that life.
In order to pursue my love, I already know that at some point it's quite probable I'll have to give up everything I have now in order to go to my significant other.
And yet...that is something I am fully prepared to do.
Because I know my feelings.
I know my own call.
I know myself.
I know how I work, and how I don't work, and I know what is and is not healthy for me.
Now me knowing what is/isn't healthy for me is no guarantee I'll actually BE healthy, admittedly.
I know spending an entire day on TVTropes is a bad idea and yet I am a trope addict.
But when I do those unhealthy things I know exactly what it is I am doing.
So I just.
I just wish there was a trust in them to trust me in knowing what I am doing is actually of value.
And going on a date with my significant other is something which I'd qualify as being important, and not a waste of time. I love them. Dearly and fully and truly from the bottom of my heart. Every day that love grows stronger and I experience it in different ways: different emotions I feel get tied to that singular emotion I have in my heart, and I know they are facets of love. Longing, happiness...the list is endlessly growing.
Emotions I know are tied to this one emotion which is new. And that new emotion which I've never experienced before can only be called love. Because I know the other emotions which are considered similar to love yet aren't really love. And this...isn't them. I well and truly. Utterly. Love a person.
No amount of sacrifices would be too much to spend time with them. <3