Deep Thoughts

I had a different post planned for tonight--one about which disease to attribute issues to. After the conversation I had with a friend tonight, though, I have something else I need to say first.

I'm different from most people. We all have different life stories, but mine is so extreme that it's in a category by itself. Several books could be written, each about a different crazy thing that happened to me. That doesn't bother me--in fact, it's usually a source of pride that I've had such a diverse, crazy life.

There are things that I like to "forget." If you asked me about them, I might have to think about it to remember everything--or even that it happened at all. Every once in a while, stuff comes up from a forgotten part of my past, and I dredge everything up again.

I'm not going to share the story here because I'm afraid of who will see it. To most people, it wouldn't seem horrible. To a fellow religious Jew, though, it's a nightmare. (Yes, I'm a religious Jew, and that was also a post that I was going to write--even before tonight. I'm saving it for another day.) Suffice to say that, as a whole, we're not very accepting of people who are different within our own social circles. Revealing some of the things I did as a kid and early teen would be suicidal in an almost-real kind of way.

There are a lot of things about myself that I don't generally tell people I don't know well, but there are few that I never, ever tell anyone. Most people I speak to for long periods of time will find out that I have diabetes, that my mother died, that I'm a religious Jew, that I have a sister. Some might get to hear about my crazy medical history. These are things that just come up, and I don't actively hide them.

There are other things that I don't actively hide, but they almost never come up. One would be the crazy, seriously messed up friendship I had with someone I just can't handle speaking to anymore. Another would be how badly I was bullied in elementary school. These things aren't secrets, exactly, but I don't like to think about them.

I wonder what it says about me that there's one story that people never hear about?

I think there might be five people who have heard this story--and maybe two of them have heard it in its entirety. The person I spoke to tonight had no real reason to hear everything, and she isn't the kind of person to push for information. (For the record, I wouldn't have minded telling her.)

Does everyone have secrets? Are there deep, dark parts of your life that you'd rather forget? (Actually, now that I think about it, I have two secrets, but one of them comes up way more often, so I remember it even though I don't talk about it.)

This person I was speaking to tonight suggested that I write an article about my story and send it to a Jewish magazine or two. It's a story that, in its entirety, is a heartwarming and really, really nice story. I'd send it without any real names, but no one would publish it. (It would really fit better in a small book, but that's really not going to happen.) Remember when I said we as a whole don't accept what's different? Well, no one would publish this story for that very reason. The fact that everything turns out well in the end doesn't excuse, in their minds, the things I did in the past.

Maybe I should type the article up. It wouldn't hurt to try, right? The worst thing that could happen is that someone in the editor's office gets a good laugh, right? Why am I so afraid to try? Could it be that I'm afraid of people recognizing me through every attempt to disguise myself and my family?

And now I see that it's far easier to write a blog post about how I feel about my crazy, messed up body than about my crazy, messed up life.

"Times will be bad, times will be good/ Things I wish I hadn't done and some I wish I would" ~Skillet