“what’s the past tense of cold?”
“cold?”
“cold”
“warm”
The room erupted in laughter. I didn’t get it. Am I the only one thinking about the progression from hot to warm to cold? How one can be this and then that after and how it depends on time amongst other factors?
I laughed with them at myself but I didn’t understand why they didn’t get it.
“you’re weird, you know that right?”
That was acknowledged in silence.
“why aren’t you normal?”
That was my cue to leave as I bent over to pack my laptop into my bag, it was time to call it a night after almost 18 hours of marathon study for finals. I was different, that wasn’t news to anyone born between the past second and the past 2 decades. Getting reminded was the least fun part. For the first time in a long time, I felt something warm and wet well up in my eyes. Strange, didn’t realize how much that affected me. I’d usually just leave and think nothing of it after that.
I’ve spent most of my life staring at “normal life” from the sidelines, enjoying the company of one, myself. It never appealed to me, this “normal life” but to survive, I had to fit in; yet, here I was, an out- the- box thinker, thriving, kinda. It was easy to pick up weird habits and skills, see the beauty of gray and black while others gawked at the spectrum of bright and shiny colors. The ordinary had an appeal to me, maybe I saw myself in it. Seen so often and yet never really standing out, maybe that’s why I appreciated it.
Somehow this never helped with socializing with peers. I wonder why.
“…because normal is boring”
Should have been my response, it was always my response, like an automated answering machine but these days, today, I was too tired to respond before the beep. Probably too old even to justify why I am the way I am.
“Be who you are, the world would adjust”, and somehow, they haven’t. The odd looks, the isolating feeling, the mental fatigue from hearing it over a hundred times in an hour, in a 24 hour day, in a 30 day month, in a 12 month year.
“surround yourself with like minds”, They don’t exist, not even among the people I first knew, family. I happen to exist between two extremes and everyone is either normal or a sociopath. It really is lonely. Yet, oddly fun. It’s a breath of fresh air when the world acknowledges how awesome you are for thinking, seeing or perceiving things differently. It really does birth the amazing; ideas, projects, innovations, you name it. Or is it just people pleasing and I struggle with self-esteem issues?
That is left to the stars to reveal.
“shut up”
“what?”
The answer was satisfying silence.
“where are you going, hey I’m talking to you-”
I could hear the bone of his jaw crack as my knuckles made contact. The seconds between the turn from the door to face him, gesture to attack and successfully make contact can not be quantified by a regular watch. He shot across the room, at least that’s what I imagined. The look on his face could be described with a 2500-word essay but I would do it in one word, satisfying.
Writing this with just my left hand and with my right hand on an ice pack can be described in two words, painfully satisfying.
The second installment to the grey series
