I’m special. Don’t worry; I’m sure you’re special too. These are words I’m not often found using about myself. And no, I haven’t lost touch with reality. Or at least with what little reality I acknowledge. Let me begin by telling you a story.
My father’s mother passed away the December before I was born. On the way to the hospital that night Dad avoided being in a serious accident when a tractor-trailer rolled on the interstate just ahead of them. After looking at each other in stunned wonder, Dad put the car back in first, Mom turned off the radio and they traveled the rest of the way in silence.
At the hospital Dad took his mother’s hand and she opened her eyes to look at him. His brothers and sister were down the hall and my mother was in the room standing just behind him. “You two take care of that little girl, she’s going to be special.” These weren’t her last words, but she passed before the moon had set. No one knew I was to be a girl but five months later I came into the word on Mother’s Day. Effectively making my mother a mother.
Now I may have embellished a little bit above, but the words are hers as far as I’ve been told. It’s a story that I have heard uncountable times through out childhood and beyond. As a kid I loved hearing it. Though even then I was pretty sure it was a parents made up story to make the world seem magical and mysterious. But that does little to prevent the mind from imagining what it will. I would wonder what made me special? Did I have secret powers? I would sit for hours and stare at our cat trying to communicate with him. All I achieved was a very close bond with said cat, which in itself is probably pretty special. All sorts of elaborate ideas would float through my head, what did she mean? Who could I be? Make believe took on a whole new dimension for me. I was going to be an adventurer, put Indian Jones to shame. The world was my oyster, or shellfish of your choice.
As I grew older, my thoughts turned to a more somber note. Maybe she had been referring to my health troubles. I won’t go into them, that is not the intent of this post. Simply suffice to say that by age twelve I had been through more doctors than most eighty year olds and more hospital visits than I care to remember. Maybe that’s what she meant, I thought. Watch out, she’s fragile. I hated this idea but it took me a while to get past it. It’s hard not to dwell on such thoughts when they circle your brain in the middle of the night when sleep is a distant friend who never remembers to call. But get past them I did. They still visit every once in a while, but not for long and never with any welcome.
I was in middle school when I discovered books. Of course I knew of them before, but I found myself immersed in new worlds and lives that were not my own. I was banned from the library before long, for I had a knack for checking out towers of books and forgetting to return them for months at a time. I made much better admirers with the local bookstore. These tomes, these friends could be mine. And while it’s rare for me to re-read a book, there they were in the boxes at the end of my bed if I should feel the need to not be me for a while. This love of reading turned into a passionate affair with writing.
It was with this discovery that my grandmother’s words came back to me. Perhaps this is what made me special. At fifteen you think any words and ideas that come from you must be important. I would sit at the family computer for days, my fingers roaming madly, backspace and spell check a constant form of entertainment.
As an adult I have come to know myself a little better. The words that I write are for me. Perhaps you my dear reader will enjoy them, or relate to them in some way. Maybe you will read them and feel the need to inform me that I’m delusional. Maybe they will spark a bit of nostalgia, sweet or bitter. I hope some of them will bring a smile to your face or the desire to read more to your heart. From boredom to brilliance, any way that they affect you so be it. I’m glad for your visit to my land of me. But this isn’t what makes me special.
What makes me special, what makes us special I think are our own perceptions of ourselves. Dreaming that something does in fact make us special makes it so. Maybe you think I’m crazy, I’ve been considered worse. Crazy doesn’t bother me so much. Being, without any attempts to delve further into the world or myself, that would bother me a great deal more.
Love Jen
