Are you a stranger in a strange land? I wonder if anyone else feels this way. Do you remember elementary school? All the kids would want to get into fights. I mean all the time. I had a hard time navigating that world. It was exhausting. Accusations would continuously fly. You had to chose sides or you were one hundred percent excluded. There were multiple factions. Each one believed it was absolutely right and never wanted to hear the other side of the story. If you did listen to the other side of the story, you were unloyal to the cause. You chose the invisible route. Everyone called you a weirdo.
I had a number of personal problems as a child. I suffered from panic attacks, but no one really knew what panic attacks were, so most kids called me a freak. Every day I spent at school I spent some time crying, maybe thirty minutes or an hour. Sometimes the whole day. I had asthma but it was undiagnosed. Of course, my family had no health insurance, and to go to the doctor you basically had to have an extra elbow in your arm or a fever so high that was causing you to have hallucinations.
I also had a glitch in the brain software. Letters got tangled. Random words and letters went missing when I wrote. Sometimes extra words and letters would jump in. I couldn't tie my shoelaces. I couldn't tell left from right. Still can’t. Writing on a line. Impossible. Writing a numbered list. (Think spelling list.) No. I'm still not "diagnosed." My mom believed I had dyslexia and have this glitch, folks. Please overlook any glitching in my poor blog.
From my perspective, life is very, very hard. Everyone is fighting terrible battles. The more a person acts like everything is okay —that they know the answers and stress they are right hundred percent right—upsets me. I try to hold true to this idea. “Be kind to everyone that you know for everyone is fighting a great battle.” (Ian McClaren).
I hope to see more kindness this week. I plan to rejoice every time I see kindness. If you are a stranger in a strange land, know you are not alone.
Art to brighten your week.
Be kind to everyone that you know for everyone is fighting a great battle.” (Ian McClaren).
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