Well, my first blog post is about my life, about who I truly am, and about why I am writing this blog. My life has been hidden in the shadows for the past ten years, but now, I have chosen to come outside. I am ready to continue my long, uncharted journey out here in the light. This stepping out of the shadows is making me nervous, but, it is also making me elated. I like being in the sunlight, and being more involved in the world; but sometimes it can be uncomfortable, showing who I am to the world. I find it difficult showing myself to the world. I tried when I was younger, and instead of making friends, I repelled them. I learned very quickly to just blend in, and to hide who I really was in an attempt to be accepted. I became a bit of a chameleon, always becoming what everyone else needed me to be. Now, I am still wary of how exposed I will be in the sunlight, but I am prepared and confident that I can step out and be my true self.
I know I am different than other kids; not better, not worse, just different. I have not found many places that I fit in, until recently. Suddenly, more kids like me have been coming into my world. In the past two years, I have met many kids and adults who think like me, see the world as I do, and who can relate to my asynchronicity, and it is a relief. These people empathize with me, and I can talk to them without hiding myself and my abilities; I can talk with them without taking away the most important parts of me.
One reason I started this blog is because I love to write. I write poems, short stories, fiction novels, self-assigned essays and papers on topics that intrigue me. If I am not writing, I am most likely reading; which then tends to lead to more writing. Another reason I am writing this blog, is that I no longer have a fear about revealing myself and can allow people to see the real me. I know I am different than others, and I know that I don’t need to be a chameleon anymore.
Now, through this blog, I am hoping to connect with more people like me all around the world. I am showing who I am, “shedding my chameleon skin”, and stepping out of the shadows. So, I hope our paths cross, and maybe we can walk a few steps together on this uncharted journey.
Photo Credit: unchartedjourney.com (me)
I am so happy to be part of your journey Hannah …as you are part of mine as well. Though 43 years my junior, we crossed paths at the time it was supposed to be. I hold my hand out to you miles away, and hope you feel it in yours if you need it. I will think of you when I need it too. There is a quote I love (believe it or not its by Stephen King). It talks about this phenomenon…..
“The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them — words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they’re brought out. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you’ve said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That’s the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear.” I too have discovered who has the right ears…. I’ll meet you in the sun my dear 🙂
Sharon,
Thank you for sharing this quote with me. I have not read any Stephen King, however, after reading this quote, I really want to. “…but for want of an understanding ear”, yeah…he gets it!
I am glad you are here, and hope you continue to enjoy my blog.
H
Hi Hannah,
Great job on the blog! Have you ever read _The Dispossessed_ by Ursula Le Guin? I think you might find the main character’s predicament very familiar (though of course, there are also some really weird things he does that I’m sure you won’t identify with!) Here are a couple of quotes:
About how isolated Shevek felt growing up, since he had no kindred spirits:
“Since he was very young he had known that in certain ways he was unlike anyone else he knew. For a child the consciousness of such difference is very painful, since, having done nothing yet and being incapable of doing anything, he cannot justify it. The reliable and affectionate presence of adults who are also, in their own way, different, is the only reassurance such a child can have; and Shevek had not had it. His father had indeed been utterly reliable and affectionate. Whatever Shevek was and whatever he did, Palat approved and was loyal. But Palat had not had this curse of difference. He was like the others, like all the others to whom community came so easy. He loved Shevek, but he could not show him what freedom is, that recognition of each person’s solitude which alone transcends it.”
How he felt when he was finally able to start corresponding with kindred spirits (other brilliant physicists) on a neighboring planet:
“Two or three times a year the reward came: a letter from Atro or another physicist in A-Io or Thu, a long letter, close-written, close-argued, all theory from salutation to signature, all intense abstruse meta-mathematical-ethico-cosmological temporal physics, written in a language he could not speak by men he did not know, fiercely trying to combat and destroy his theories, enemies of his homeland, rivals, strangers, brothers.
For days after getting a letter he was irascible and joyful, worked day and night, foamed out ideas like a fountain. Then slowly, with desperate spurts and struggles, he came back to earth, to dry ground, ran dry.”
If this sounds interesting, the whole book is available online. It’s one of my favorites!
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ursula-k-le-guin-the-dispossessed
I look forward to watching your journey!
Kerri Miller
ELA Academy