Growing up, I was always taught that being ordinary was more or less a sin. Of course, my brother does like to be dramatic.
I was five when my brother told me that being smart is more important than being a regular kid. He taught me how to memorize, how to build a mind palace, and how to analyze. He told me that no one would want to be friends with me unless I was smart, because who would want to be friends with someone who still plays with his soldiers?
I used to think that you could be both smart and playful, but it is no to be so. Growing up I was more into puzzles than anything else; aside from my soldiers, of course. I could sit for hours examining and solving all kinds of puzzles - sometimes even codes - and it would never bore me for a second.
But he was right, my brother. No one wanted to be my friend, whether I was smart or not. I would always take my analyzing too far, thus I always ended up with either a broken nose, jaw, ribs, fingers, you name it. I'll admit that I don't know where certain limits lie. I don't know if I'm saying the wrong thing or not; I'm just doing what I was taught as a child.
I don't think anyone cares, though. If I could stop all of this then I would, but I don't know how. It's not easy having your brain go 100 miles per hour in thought. Never stopping to rest; sometimes I go days without sleeping, eating, or even using the bathroom. I just don't know how to stop it.
Sometimes, though, I'll have someone tell me that it's alright. That I just have a big brain, that it's overrun by too many things going all at once, and that they understand. That makes me happy. Nothing else has ever made me truly happy than having someone tell me that it's okay to be the way that I am.
I don't know how other people are going to react to the things that I tell them. I don't understand body language or the basic human mind all that well just yet. I only know how to deduce, and all that does is get me into trouble. I just wish that I could be normal.
I wish that I could walk down the street without people glaring at me, or whispering to their significant other, or calling me a freak like Sally Donovan does. I wouldn't mind it if it were just her, but it feels like the whole world is in agreement. I'm either a freak, a weirdo, a disappointment, a psychopath, or - and this is my absolute favorite - mentally ill. People actually think that I'm mentally ill because I have a thought process 10x faster than they do.
I know that I shouldn't let it get to me, that feelings are meaningless, but I can't. I just can't. It does hurt. It stings. It really hurts to know that being different (in my case) is considered freakish.