While having a genetic disorder like NF can make you feel
profoundly different from your friends and loved ones, I think my feeling of
being different goes a lot deeper. I
don’t remember ever feeling like I belonged: I’m talking as a youngster, under
the age of eight, long before being diagnosed and much longer than
understanding what it was I had. I have
always felt a disconnect; like a ghost.
But it wasn’t coming from any outward experiences such as family. I had a loving, though far from perfect, childhood.
An angry father, a sad mother, yadda yadda.
But I never was abused in any way.
No, what it is, and please don’t laugh. Okay, you can laugh. What it is, is a feeling that I don’t belong
on this planet. I have never felt at “home” anywhere, though
when I moved to Seattle from Mpls, I remember crossing the I-90 thinking “I’m
home” But in a short while, although I love
Seattle and would never go back to Mpls, it still didn’t feel quite right. So the feeling of not belonging on Earth came
rushing back.
I always keep it tamped down. I don’t dwell on it unless the pain is
through the roof. And then I just pray I
can go Home, wherever that is. But
sometimes, when watching documentaries about whether or not life exists
elsewhere (of course it does), I feel cheated.
I ask why, why was I sent here and by whom? But it’s like praying. No one (usually) gives you an answer or it’s
not the answer you want. So maybe it’s
all the same thing. Wanting to go Home,
wanting to go back, wanting, wanting, wanting.
Never any good, the wanting. Just
makes the pain worse. Concentrate on
gratitude.
There is so much we don’t know. We look for life elsewhere, but of course, we
think of life, and the “ability to support life”(as we know it) is the same
wherever they are in the universe, but we know nothing. Just because we are carbon based and need
liquid water for life, doesn’t mean those “out there” are sustained in the same
manner. For all we know, mercury
sustains our distant neighbors. Nothing
faster than the speed of light? That’s
what we know to be true. Now. We know nothing.
And maybe, in the end, my feelings of not belonging are
indeed the result of having this genetic disorder that leaves me in knock me
off my feet in pain more days than not.
On “5” days, like this one (pain a 5 on the 1-10 scale) I can feel kind
of normal, whatever that is. But on days
where I have to do everything and anything to “get out of my body” (when I
meditate or find some other way to quiet my nerves both physical and spiritual)
is when I feel it the most. When I want
to go Home the most. And I know everyone
who has heavy challenges, whatever they are, feel the same way. It just feels to me deeper than that. Like I actually left something behind
somewhere. Like I’m being tested; maybe
from a higher power, maybe from a different kind of power. Who can say, eh?
All I know is I’m ready to move on. But whatever is on the other side, is not
ready for me to do that, so here I shall stay.
Until providence tells me it’s time.
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