Wand'ring, Remotely

When did I become so unlike other people? Either it was when I followed Sylvie across the bridge, and the lake claimed us, or it was when my mother left me waiting for her and established in me the habit of waiting and expectation which makes any present moment most significant for what it does not contain. Or it was at my conception.

– Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson

When did you become so unlike other people? You are also asking yourself precisely the same question.

Sometimes it feels a drag to interact with people – for you know clearly where it is going to end up, in the oblivion of nothingness. English is heard on one end of the telephone, and alienspeak on the other.

It’s difficult to keep up a conversation when the chasm between you and other people feel so gaping, like you can fall ‘neath the fissures into the cavernous hole waiting to swallow you whole.

It’s torturous, almost, to endure speaking to people whose minds and hearts and souls are so foreign from yours, you barely recognize them as tangible entities but mere shadows. The irony is that to them, you are that ephemeral shadow, flitting here and there, and they cannot hold you down. You are smoke, amorphous, sliding out of their grasp just when they thought they have caught you and known you and understood you and caught a glimpse of who you truly are. You frustrate them, just as much as you are frustrated at how they try with all their might to grasp you but it ever eludes them.

But you cannot accept it, the fact that you are smoke. You want to be solid, like red brick or cold sleek marble. Something people can touch. Something people can grasp. Something people can comprehend.

But you are smoke, you are shadow, you are all things they never saw and nothing they appear to see.

And after so long, you have turned back to writing, to literature, where you belong – in that sea, that whirlpool of words – and not among any land dwellers. You tried walking on land like a fish pretended to have legs, only to discover after much disappointment it only had fins, gills and a tail.

How to accept being so unlike other people, when for so long you have deluded yourself into thinking you can be like other people?

For how long can you keep this up, if this non-acceptance keeps you up at night?

[Photo Credits: Pixabay]

Have you ever felt like an alien, out of place? If you have any thoughts, please leave it in the comments below!

I hope you've enjoyed reading, as much as I enjoyed writing this. Resteems and upvotes are always appreciated!