Wormelia was the name of my first pet - a worm I found struggling from sidewalk to garden after a rain shower. Oh, how I loved her. I built her a home in a jar and filled it with mud and twigs and leaves and rotated magazines around it so she could have a change of scenery. When I thought she might rather like the warmth of a bed and placed her in my parents, you said it to me for the first time. “Why can’t you just be normal?” I was three years old.
My mom has a beautiful sense of style and a house to prove it. Better than a catalog, her friends don’t hesitate to remind her over dinner where even each piece of silverware is chosen perfectly. Each room is brighter and fuller than the next until the backroom in the basement - grey and cold and dull. I used my fingerpaints to add happiness to a seemingly lonely room and I couldn’t wait to see your reaction when you asked again. “Why can’t you just be normal?” I was six years old.
School was a hard place but if you make friends early with the “right” kids, you'll be alright. This was one of my first life lessons and I succeeded and got to sit at the cool table. The boy at the other table who shouted and shook with no control over his body was picked on under muffled whispers every day. One ordinary Tuesday, sub sandwich day, the boys at my table thought it might be fun to throw their leftovers at him. I stood between him and bread and came home that day with ketchup down my shirt. You said, louder this time, “Why can’t you just be normal?” I was nine years old.
ADHD. The teachers told you I would have to work twice as hard as the other kids to do half as well. They said I didn’t “apply” myself - fuck that saying - but this time I did. I spent long hours of the night for weeks making a board game to teach my class about life in the seventies. My grade was 110 and when I brought it home, excited for a compliment from you, you said it wasn’t a big deal, because two other kids got the same grade. I screamed and came back to show you the blood coming from fresh scars on my thighs. This time you screamed. “Why can’t you just be normal?” I was twelve years old.
I make new friends who get me. We compare war stories, anorexic bones, and self-inflicted scars, and mine don’t live up. After degrading myself and learning what it feels like to have your body taken from you, over and over, as you scream in pain, I finally meet a nice boy. He doesn’t eat animal products, smells like weed, writes beautiful poetry, and cares about my consent. You learn that the pigment of his skin doesn’t match mine and ask again, this time resulting in a slap in the face from me. “Why can’t you just be normal?” I was fifteen years old.
College isn’t for me. I haven’t gone to class all week, maybe all month. I’m not sure how long really, because my blackouts are getting longer. My drinking begins seconds after opening my eyes. I barely know my own name. I hear your voice between my ears telling me what a stupid girl I am, and the liquor goes down even quicker. After a boy telling me he won’t watch me kill myself anymore, I call mom and beg her to take me to rehab because I need help. Again. “Why can’t you just be normal?” I was eighteen years old.
Over the course of my life, I have realized that I feel too hard. I cry too many tears, love too many souls, scream too loudly, and forgive too often. My heart have loved and lost more than the average has. My biggest strengths are my deepest weaknesses and none of this makes sense to my racing mind. I am crying now over something that won’t matter in a week, watching the trains go by, knowing I want to die but don’t want the conductor to have that on hisn conscience so I will have to find another way. It is your voice, but the words leave my lips now. “Why can’t you just be normal?” I am twenty two years old.
