Yup, it’s that topic’s turn in the barrel.

I am struggling really hard to see my uniqueness (or rarity, I suppose) as a good thing. I realized only today that I have viewed my uniqueness as almost exclusively a negative for a very long time.

Pretty much, ever since my social world fell apart in the second half of first grade.

For the first half, I was no pariah. The details are understandably fuzzy and so it’s hard to summon up more than a vague and blurry emotional impression of the time, but I recall being somewhat popular and I definitely remember making people laugh (on purpose), and being quite happy with my teacher as well, who was a very sweet and kind woman of gentle and caring demeanor.

A lot like my mother, come to think of it.

But then a little red haired kid named Trevor told everyone I was fat, and made fun of me for that, presumably out of some form of jealousy, and that was that as far as my social status was concerned. I fell all the way down.

Part of me will always hate his guts for that. That can’t be changed. But my more adult side doesn’t really hate him. After all, he was a kid too, and had no more idea what he was doing than I did.

Life just works out that way sometimes.

After that came the realization of how little in common I had with the other kiddies, and the social gulf was sealed. To them, I was weird, gross, and full of myself. To me, the world went cold and I felt truly abandoned and on my own.

And to be frank, I was.

Every since then, I have felt cursed. I had these two things, being fat and being crazy smart, that meant I was alone all the time. I couldn’t get along with kids my age. And I didn’t have a lot in common with my siblings either, who after all were all 4+ years older than me.

Age stratification is very harsh when you are young,.

And my two best friends from my preschool world, Trish from next door and Janet from across the street, were a year older then me, so they went into school a year before me (the year I spent in Not Kindergarten), plus I was socially embarrassing, so they wanted nothing to do with me.

They didn’t know what they were doing either.

The obvious conclusion, from a child’s point of view, was that there was something very wrong with me that made it so I had no friends and no support from anyone. Whatever that thing was, even if it was something that the outside world told me was supposed to be good like being really good at schoolwork, had to be something terrible as well.

Essentially, I was cursed. And I felt that curse as a heavy weight every single day. I was always trying to do the right thing, but in my life that meant do what you’re told and stay where you’re put.

And to be honest, I was never told or put much.

I think every kid wants to be good. Kids want their parent’s approval more than anything in the world. But what that means is up to the parents. Whatever it is, that’s what will form a very deep level of their child’s personality.

Mine wanted me to be a low maintenance as possible. So I was.

So I have spent most of my life feeling like my role was to wait patiently for someone to tell me what to do. Whatever I did other than that was up to me.

Sadly for me, that is still the case. Perhaps that is why I am so afraid to take initiative on anything. What if I am doing something else when my instructions finally come in?

Anyhow, I have not experienced any positive effects from my uniqueness. Not consciously. School was too easy for me to take seriously. Getting an A on something was par for the course. It was so easy for me, and I received so little positive feedback from the world about it, that it never felt like an achievement at all.

It was just… what I did, I suppose.

Even today, when I know I have a lot of intelligence and talent, it is hard to take any comfort at all from it. I’ve always had a lot of potential. I was told that over and over again as a child. But nothing ever came of it, so I can’t take it seriously, even though I totally should.

Not everyone has the gifts that I have. I should be grateful. They told me that over and over again too.

But I wasn’t. And that hasn’t changed.

I wish I could be grateful for my gifts. That gratitude might motivate me. Go out there and show the world how awesome I am, and all that. But I just don’t have enough motivation to overcome my fear, ennui, and inertia.

In a sense, I suppose I am waiting for the world to make the first move. Waiting for someone to hold out their hand to me and say “I believe in you, and I will help you get through the rough terrain between you and success. ”

Obviously, that’s not how reality works. Even if such a person existed (which is unlikely), I would at least need to put my works somewhere they can see them and decide to help me. Nobody is going to break down the doors of my tiny little world and rescue me from the custom dungeon I have locked myself into for twenty years.

So obviously, whatever keeps me from putting myself out there has to go. Around, through, or over, it doesn’t matter, but it has to be taken out of the picture before I can truly grow.

And I want to grow. I need to grow. I am so tired of being so small on the inside.

I’m a sad little Peter Pan, who desperately wants to grow up.

But I might need a little help.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.