I have always felt that i think differently and see the world differently then most people. I am sure that is partly because I am an artist. At least that is what i use for an excuse in the rare times someone asks me why. I am an artist. I am supposed to be strange. Odd. Different. It gets nods of understanding. Nearly everyone has met an eccentric artist at some point.
There may be other reasons too. I had a serious head injury as a child. At 4 years of age i was kicked in the head by a horse. I know, that sounds like a joke. Who really has something like that happen to them? Me. I did. I started being unusual and strange early I guess. It was my fault, my mom told me to leave the horse alone but the moment she went to answer the phone i just HAD to go ride my stick horse in the pasture with the real horsie. Six month later once they got all the bone splinters out of my brain and the top of my head put back on, i got to relearn how to walk, talk and write. It is no small feat of luck and medical science that I am here and alive and able to function. In hind-site being normal might have been to much to ask for. You would think that would have made me scared of horses, but to this day i still work with and ride horses as often as I can.
Another possible reason for my strangeness was my father. Again, I know it sounds to crazy to be truth, but he was a sociopath. He was not the sort to run around killing people and leaving bodies under the basement floor, but he could hurt with with his words and actions and he had no trouble or guilt about doing anything it took to do and get what he wanted. Because of him, as a child i got to experience being hit in the face with a shovel, doing chores at gunpoint, waking to gasoline being poured in my bedroom, and the repeated loss and destruction of any pets or possessions that i held dear. The only time my father ever expressed guilt or sorrow about his actions was when he was drunk. He would come to my room and sob about how he was a terrible father and i would agree with him just to make him cry harder. I can be a bit mean too I guess.
I am not sure if it was a learned behavior, a genetic factor or a result of the head injury but i have some of my father's ability to not really be in touch with emotions. Fear, joy, sorrow, love. It all comes to me as if thru a filter or thick curtains. I have to think about emotions to feel them.... this is both handy and at times unsettling. When everyone around me is having a emotional moment and i am there calmly going "What? Why are we so upset?" These are the times i am sure to have that "i must be a space alien" feeling again.
So, hello to you that read this. This is me. The Night Person, the Artist, the Heyoka, the odd one. I am strange but not a danger. Rest assured, there are no bodies under my basement floor either.
