This morning I got up for work and it was still dark outside. My head was in the kind of early morning fog that I’d most likely encounter when I stumbled out the front door. I was on autopilot, really. I am not a morning person.
I went into the bathroom to start my morning routine. I reached out to turn on the nightlight, because our bathroom’s harsh overhead lighting is way too jarring for that time of day. But I groaned inwardly, because I realized that yesterday morning, the nightlight hadn’t worked. Dear Husband had heard me muttering and fumbling for a small flashlight (seriously, anything is better than the overhead light first thing), and when he inquired, I think I managed to mumble, “dead batteries”.
But this morning, I realized that neither of us had had time to replace them yesterday morning, as we both had to rush out the door. Crap. Well, at least I had put the flashlight in an easy to find location.
And yet something told me to check the nightlight. And sure enough, DH must have gotten to it yesterday afternoon, because it bathed me in its comforting glow. I was so relieved that my knees almost buckled.
I know that may sound extreme, but at my spot on the autistic spectrum, harsh lighting, or indeed any lighting where none is necessary or where it disrupts the natural world, is just one more sensory attack that I have to waste energy defending myself from. I’ve only got so much energy for such things in a day before my autism leaks out all over everybody. Take my word for it: That ain’t pretty.
In the course of a day, DH does dozens of things that make my life easier and better. He makes sure I have my night light. If my favorite food is running low, it seems to magically appear in the fridge, because he knows I don’t cope well with the fluorescent lighting and hectic energy of grocery stores. It didn’t take him too long to understand that when I say I need a nap, I’m not kidding. I really need a nap. He keeps up with my car’s routine maintenance schedule. He says he actually enjoys mowing the lawn and folding laundry. (Well, then, by all means, dear. Indulge yourself!)
It’s little things like that that mean so much to me. My love language is Acts of Service, so it feels like he gives me everything, everywhere, all at once. I’m not used to the amazing kindness, consideration, and compassion he displays by doing these things for me.
I know what you’re thinking. Surely it’s easy to show appreciation for batteries. Surely it’s easy to do battery-sized things for him in return.
Ah, but you don’t understand the exchange rate, here. When I turned that nightlight on this morning, it felt, to me, like he had just given me the Hope Diamond.
How do I even begin to respond in kind as I bob along in my sea of imperfections? Even if I shower him with every drop of love that I have within me, I am given the emotional equivalent of the Hope Diamond 100 times a day. That’s a lot. And I’m a lot. But I’m no diamond.
Given my frequent autistic lack of facial expression, I’m not sure I adequately convey just how much all those things mean to me. I can also be pretty autistically oblivious at times because I get so laser focused on one thing that the rest of the world kind of fades away. But that doesn’t mean that I take everything for granted and don’t appreciate everything he does for me. When I do see something, I thank him, but I’m often misunderstood by people because my body language and my words don’t reveal the genuine depth of my emotions.
I think one essential element in a good relationship is that both people actively try to make the other person’s life better and/or easier. My ways of doing this for DH take on a different form. I can’t keep up with his energy level or his extroversion or his optimism, so I would never be able to do 100 little amazing things a day. I wouldn’t even know where to begin.
My contributions are not as quantifiable as batteries or folded laundry, but I’d like to think I’m pulling my weight by helping our garden thrive, by giving him unique perspectives, by being a sounding board and an editor and the one who notices the minute things that he overlooks as he focuses on the big picture. I try to introduce him to new experiences, new ideas, and new philosophies, spiritual beliefs, and cultures. Before me, he didn’t listen to podcasts, or watch the special features on DVDs, or go to Europe, or zipline. It had never occurred to him to parasail or touch a manatee. He thought everyone aspired to extroversion, and that just about everyone in the world thought, lived, and acted within a narrow set of parameters.
He has given me a safe harbor from the stormy and exhausting sea of a neurotypical world that has rarely welcomed me. In turn, I’ve taken him down roads he has never traveled, to explore things beyond his well-established horizon. Both, I think, are great improvements to our qualities of life.
But the difference is, I desperately needed what he provides, whereas he never knew what he was missing, and he therefore could have lived quite contentedly without it. Who knows how he sees it. Do my more elusive, yet equally genuine efforts make all of his solid, constant ones seem worthwhile? The idea that he might not think so is too scary to contemplate.
Are the scales balanced in our relationship? I think that without me, he’d have missed out on a lot. Whether he is aware of this and gives it as much value as I would is hard to know. What I do know is that he makes my life lighter, warmer, steadier, and more worth showing up for.
Thank you, DH, for being my nightlight on a cold, dark, winter morning.
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