The Music to My Lyrics
Words. They dance around in my head like Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. Again, in my head. When they come out, though, it's usually something more akin to Elaine from Seinfeld. I know you know. Regardless of how they come out, they're important to me. And while I can't paint a masterpiece in oil, acrylic, or any other medium, I can with words…to some degree. David (aka Bud), on the other hand, feels the beat of a drum or a guitar riff in ways most people miss.
I believe this is why we work so well together. Please, don't misunderstand me, our relationship is nowhere near perfect. He drives me absolutely insane and I'm sure most days he questions his life choices when he looks at me (though he'd never tell me that. he's too kind).
But we make it work, and here's how:
We live by the 80/20 rule - David gives me what I want 80% of the time, and I allow him to have his way 20%. This right here is what I'm talking about. He allows me to talk smack constantly and he takes it like a champ. He understands that humor is a HUGE release for me, even if it's smack talking humor. Don't fret, he gives it back and does it well. But we both know the limits. We have an unspoken rule about not crossing lines or taking things too far, and we always follow up with a "love you, bud/love you, pal" and a booty smack. Balance.
I'm a cleaner/organizer, he's a mess - Listen, I can't function if there's clutter on the counters or shoes scattered across the living room floor. Unless it’s a mess I made that I will be cleaning up. If you’re a messy creator, you’ll get it. Besides that, everything has a place, and that place is NOT wherever David last set it down. He, on the other hand, operates in what I can only describe as "organized chaos," which is really just code for "I know it's here somewhere under this pile of guitar picks and receipts from 2019." I've learned to close the door to his chaos (or, more often, clean it up and then give him smack talk about it later, again, balance) and pretend it doesn't exist. He's learned that if he leaves something on my clean counter for more than 24 hours, it will either be in the trash or relocated to his music room. Usually the trash. We're both happy with this arrangement. I think he is anyway. He’d better be.
I'm a planner, he's open to whatever - I.need.to.know.the.plan. What time are we leaving? What's the itinerary? What should I wear? What’s he wearing? What will the weather be like? What's plan B if plan A falls through? David's entire life philosophy can be summed up as "we'll figure it out." This used to stress me out to the point of near-breakdown. Now I've accepted that he will never look at the detailed Google Doc I created for our vacation, and he's accepted that I will create it anyway because it makes me feel better. I plan, he nods along, and somehow we both end up where we need to be.
I'm high strung and difficult, he's laid back and easy going - I worry about everything. EVERYTHING. Did I (he!) lock the door? Is that noise the furnace or an axe murderer? Why hasn't the (grown) kid texted back in 45 minutes—is he/she okay or should I file a missing person's report? David, meanwhile, is the human equivalent of a golden retriever. Everything's fine. It'll all work out. Why stress? His calm drives me crazy because HOW CAN HE BE SO CALM?! But also, his calm keeps me from completely losing it on a daily basis. I'm the storm, he's the eye of it. And somehow, that works.
Fact: The link above is to Spotify and Brad Paisley’s ‘The Perfect Storm’. David added that song to one of our first shared playlists way back in 2016-2017 (he’d remember the exact everything, I’m just guessing), and it sums us up pretty perfectly. Neither one of us are country music fans, but it fits, like a worn pair of jeans and like us.
We focus on our common interest - Interest being singular. Other than the fact that we've technically known each other for 35+ years, we really don't have much in common. I love home improvement, David loves music. I love arts and crafts, David loves music. I love gardening, David loves music. I love reading and writing and anything that makes a mess, David loves music. I think you get my point. We don't have much to connect on, but we always have music.
We have spent countless hours creating music together. And by creating music, I mean creating playlists. We have a playlist for every event, emotion, holiday, catastrophe. You name it, we have a playlist to match. But it's more than just throwing songs into a list. Our playlist creation sessions are basically our version of quality time.
David will introduce me to a new band or genre, going on and on about the rhythm section or the production quality or some guitar technique I'll never fully understand. Meanwhile, I'm sitting there with the lyrics pulled up on my phone because that's how I actually absorb music. He KNOWS this about me. He knows I have to read the lyrics while I listen—at least the first time through—because I don't process things well audibly. Words that just float past my ears don't stick. But words I can SEE? Those I can hold onto.
It's the same with how we communicate, actually. He can tell me something verbally and I'll nod along, but five minutes later I've already forgotten half of it. Send me a text or write it down? I'll remember it forever. My brain just works better with written words than spoken ones. David's memory is... well, it's a mystery. He'll remember the most random, obscure details about the weather during a concert on a particular night in March 1992 but forget what I asked him to grab from the store ten minutes ago (even though I texted it to him). There's no rhyme or reason to what sticks in his brain and what doesn't. It's like his memory operates on its own secret algorithm that even he doesn't understand.
So when we're listening to music together, he's feeling the beat and analyzing the instrumentation while I'm deep in the lyrics, connecting with the story and the emotion behind the words. Then we'll talk about it—him pointing out things I never would've noticed about the music itself, me sharing what the lyrics mean or how they hit differently when you really pay attention to them. We experience the same song in completely different ways, and somehow that makes it better. He teaches me to listen beyond the words. I teach him to pay attention to what the words are actually saying.
This is how we connect. Not through shared hobbies or activities, but through this one thing we both love, experienced through our completely different lenses. And honestly? I wouldn't have it any other way.
*Fun Fact: David helped me create the playlist included in the 1st Annual AuRTistic Expressions Holiday Survival Guide. Only three of the song are “our thing”, but we worked together (me the lyrics, him the music) to find the perfect songs to express what I was working to convey!
My brain works differently, and he actually gets it (or fakes it convincingly well) - Here's the difficult part about being neurodivergent in a relationship with someone who isn't: it's exhausting explaining yourself. Except with David, I don't have to. Well, I didn't always not have to. In the beginning, I had to explain A LOT. Like why I can't just "calm down" or why I started ripping down a wall at 10 PM on a Tuesday or why I've been sitting in the same spot for three hours hyper fixated on meticulously planning the layout of a room in a house we're never going to buy. But he learned. He actually paid attention and learned how my brain works, which is more than I can say for most people. Now when I'm spiraling about something ridiculous, he doesn't tell me to relax (because that would result in even more smack talk). He just asks, "What do you need right now?" Sometimes it's space. Sometimes it's him to list back to me all the things I've already done so I can stop worrying I forgot something. Sometimes it's just him sitting next to me while I word-vomit every thought in my head until I figure out what I'm actually stressed about. He doesn't try to fix me because I'm not broken. He just... adapts. And that's huge.
We speak completely different languages - Here's the thing: we're both talkers, but in completely different ways. David is a social butterfly. He can talk to literally anyone about anything. He THRIVES in group texts. He's the one keeping the conversation going, sending memes, staying involved. Meanwhile, I'm over here avoiding group texts like the plague because the notification anxiety alone might actually kill me.
But put me in front of a blank document or a blog post? I'll write you a novel. I'm an open book to complete strangers on the internet, pouring my heart out in 2,000-word blog posts about my deepest thoughts and feelings. People who have never met me know more about my inner world than some of my actual friends. It's weird, I know.
David will spend 45 minutes talking to someone at a party about the intricate details of a guitar pedal while they're clearly trying to escape. I'll spend 45 minutes crafting the perfect blog post about why I chose a specific paint color for the bathroom, complete with backstory, tangents, and probably some childhood trauma mixed in for good measure. This whole post, for example.
And emotions? We're BOTH big on talking about feelings. Like, annoyingly so. We'll have hour-long conversations about how we're feeling and why we're feeling it and what childhood experience probably caused it. We're that couple. But here's the thing: when things get serious or vulnerable, David can talk it out in the moment. I need to retreat, process, and then write him a carefully crafted message that explains exactly what I'm thinking and feeling. He's learned to give me that space to write it out instead of expecting me to have all the words right there on the spot.
We've stopped trying to change each other - This one took a while. I spent way too long trying to get David to care about the things I care about. "Don't you want to help me pick out new throw pillows?" No. No, he does not. And you know what? That's fine. He spent way too long trying to get me to understand the music side of music. "Can you hear the difference in the EQ?" No. No, I cannot. And that's also fine. We finally figured out that we don't have to share every interest or hobby or passion. We just have to respect that the other person has them. Now when I'm elbow-deep in a furniture refinishing project, he brings me a drink and tells me it looks great (even though it currently looks like a crime scene). When he's working on learning a new song on his guitar, I sit and listen (usually from another room and he doesn’t even know it) even though I have no idea what it’s supposed to sound like. We show up for each other without requiring the other person to be different than they are. Wild concept.
We give each other room to be a mess - Because let's be honest, we're both a mess in our own ways. I'm a mess of anxiety and overthinking and starting 47 projects at once. He's a mess of chill laid backness and "I'll do it later" and thinking dirty dishes can just live in the sink indefinitely (they cannot, Bud, they CANNOT). But we've created space for both of us to be imperfect without judgment. When I have a day where my brain won't cooperate and I accomplish absolutely nothing, he doesn't make me feel guilty about it. When he forgets to do the thing I asked him to do eleventy hundred times, I (eventually) let it go and do it myself. I do everything around here anyway. <—more smack talk, FYI. We've learned that being in a relationship doesn't mean you have to have it all together all the time. It just means you have someone who loves you even when you're falling apart.
We keep showing up - At the end of the day, this is what it comes down to. We keep showing up for each other, even when it's hard. Even when I'm being impossible (daily) and he's being infuriating (appx. twice a week). Even when we're tired and stressed and wondering why relationships have to be so much work. We keep showing up because somewhere between the playlist creation and the booty smacks and the "love you, bud/love you, pal”, we figured out that this is what we're supposed to be doing. Together. He's the steady rhythm to my chaotic lyrics. I'm the words to his melody. And somehow, against all odds and despite our differences, we make a pretty decent song.
So yeah, we're the music to each other's lyrics. He provides the beat, the baseline, the steady tempo that keeps me from completely flying off the rails. I provide the story, the emotion (so much emotion), the excessive amount of words that explain every single feeling in excruciating detail. Together we make something that actually works. It's not always a Grammy-winning performance. Sometimes we're off-key. Sometimes we forget the words. Sometimes we're not even playing in the same genre. But it's ours, and we keep writing it together, one playlist at a time.
Love you, Bud. booty smack
(He'll probably read this and say "looks good, pal" without actually reading past the second paragraph. See what I'm dealing with?)
Tell me, do you have someone who writes the lyrics to your music or the words to your song? Have you let them know lately that they’re your muse? Drop a comment and tell me about your person—the one who balances out your chaos (or whose chaos you balance out). I want to hear your stories.
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About the Author
Gal is an autistic artist, late-diagnosed at 49, and the creator of AuRTistic Expressions—a space where neurodivergent truth meets creative survival. Through books, blog posts, printables, and coaching, Gal explores what it means to unmask safely, communicate authentically, and make art that doesn’t ask for permission. Stick around—there’s plenty more where this came from.
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