I've been watching a ton of Dexter recently. Not only is it great television, but it's been really good at distracting me (my days have been seeming really long lately, and I need something to fill the time). So if you've seen Dexter, you would understand my next sentence better. I've always held myself to a different code. I didn't feel normal, I didn't feel the way I assumed humans are supposed to feel. So I pretended. I guessed at how to interact with people. I protected myself from being hurt. I didn't let myself feel certain things, and didn't understand some emotions when I felt them. I had rules. I kept higher standards for myself than most people do.
For some time, I came to accept myself as this non-human thing. I was alright with it. I even celebrated my weirdness. When The Killers came out with the song "Human" I proudly proclaimed that I was indeed dancer and not human. Being human seemed too hard, so I decided to live with myself the way that I was. But I still really had this longing to be normal. I wanted to fit in. I wanted to experience the things that humans experience. It just seemed impossible for me.
Within the past couple months I've learned that their are other people like me out there. Many people are damaged. Not by living lives that are made hard by things like abuse, poverty, drugs, or any of the other things we consider terrible. But there are a lot of people who have dealt with a bunch of emotional struggles just like I have. Not everybody has dealt with them the way I have, but there are people who are hurt. People have emotional scars. Some of them are even afraid like me. A lot of them are guarded.
Not everybody is like that. My best friends aren't. They've always been good at living life. Unless you've been where I was, you'd probably never understand someone like me. There are different kinds of people. That's a normal part of life. I always thought I had to be like my friends, because they're normal. But not everybody is the same when it comes to these things. I've learned more and more that I'm not alone in the way I feel.
With all the events that have taken place the last couple of months, I let my guard down. I forgot my code. I didn't care what happened to me. I just wanted to feel. One day, after everything that made me come to that point had come crashing down, I was riding home from work and I realized the most amazing thing ever. I am human. Fully human.
I don't intend to go back to what I was. I will allow myself to be normal. I like this too much.
Don't get me wrong, I'm still weird. I definitely have my share of quirks. But that's just the way some people are. It's all gravy, baby.
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