Putting the A in Anonymous

One of my high school teachers was the kind you wouldn't be surprised to find on the news one night. She was quite popular with the students and stories swirled about her throwing parties for teens which included alcohol and drugs. It could have been the fantasy of a few of the male students, but I'm inclined to believe there was some truth to the rumors. The only accomplishment of her class was to teach us hundreds of the most common prefixes and suffixes in order to most accurately guess on multiple choice tests, and when that failed, how to outright cheat. I never knew of the entire world that exists to fill the market for scholarly deceit!

Thanks to that teacher, I know that there's a website where one can print off a cheat sheet that appears to be a coca-cola bottle wrapper and I know that the prefix a- means without, as in amoral, atypical, aardvark and abysmal. Likewise is the doubly-complicated vowel-preceding prefix of an- as in anaerobic, anarchy, and anonymous.

So why is my anonymous blog looking rather onymous? Elizabeth and Andrew are chosen names in honor of Eliza and Andrew Johnson whose marriage had some of the traits of my own. I thought it sounded better than calling myself Mrs. FiveEggsIn and my husband Mr. FEI. I briefly considered more heavenly namesakes such as Nicholas and Thérèse, both saints known for their anonymity, but decided that I had a long way to go before I could connect myself to them in such a public way. I figured one of the worst US presidents and his sickly wife were something we could do better than, so Andrew and Elizabeth it was.

Elizabeth, Elspeth, Betsy and Bess,
They all went together to seek a bird's nest.
They found a bird's nest with five eggs in,
They all took one, and left four in.

Starting Out...

I need support. I need to connect with other people who experience the same things I experience. I need to be understood.

I also need to respect my husband's privacy and his legitimate request that I not put him in uncomfortable or potentially compromising positions by discussing the fact that he has Asperger's with those in our life.

The compromising medium is to start this blog and to hopefully discover the blogs of others who are making similar journeys through it so that I may learn and laugh and grow in love for my husband among them.

Sometimes I appreciate the joys of living with my husband. Loyal, passionate about what interests him, intelligent, slow to anger, usually well-researched, adventurous, practical, patient, curious, and observant, he also has the most adorable dimples and a fire that fills his eyes and knocks me off my feet when he's inspired.

Other times, I feel like we live in different universes and I wonder if I will ever know what goes on inside him, or if there even is anything more than what I see, and I am tempted to despair. While I tend to be intuitive, introspective, communicative, nuanced, and working in a realm of people and perceptions to see the gestalt or the "big picture," my husband is quite the opposite. Add in a house full of people and pets, in-laws worthy of the movies, random forays into new hobbies or pursuits, a shared passion for our faith, and a burned dinner or two and you have our life.

Love, look at the two of us,
Strangers in many ways.
Let’s take a lifetime to say,
“I knew you well . . .”
-The Carpenters