Was I Ever Normal Chapter One

Was I Ever Normal Chapter One

Before it started

When I was a little girl

Who hadn’t seen what the world could do

To innocent bystanders

Who meant no harm

Was I normal then?

Can I even remember those days

Or is my view of them jaded

From everything that’s happened since?

When did the illness grab hold of me?

And carry me away in its claws

To a world filled

With colorful little pills

In small paper cups

And double-locked doors

And beds that are bolted

Down to the floor

And have little slots in the corners of them

For the nurses to slide restraints through

To fasten down an internally injured soul

When did I start my journey there?

I think…

It started when I was born

And the world was more colorful

Brighter

And too full of danger

And I was tooreceptive

And too sensitive

I was the kind of baby

That stayed up all night with colic

And seemed to cry for hours

I was the kind of baby

That seemed to have an extra capacity

For love

And making an adult smile

I was the kind of baby who learned fast and furiously

And spoke early

But walked late

My mom brought me into work a lot

She would show me off to the other teachers

Who would ooh and ahh

As I aced the baby IQ tests

And surpassed all their expectations

So even then

Even then I wasn’t really normal

But what is normal anyway?

Besides a reading on a thermometer

As I Grew Older

I did everything early

Maybe that was the problem

I did everything early and then

I just ran out of things to do

And got stuck floundering around

In a strange limbo world

I read so early

That I was way beyond my peers

When it came time for kindergarten

I went anyway

But it was horrible

Nothing I did was right according to them

I wasn’t normal according to them

But what is normal anyway

Besides a judgment

I skipped first grade

It would have been too easy for me

So my parents put me in second

I still didn’t fit in

I still threw temper tantrums every night at home

The littlest things would set me off

And I wouldn’t be able to calm down

For hours

I think that’s when The Others

Came into my life

I guess I kind of invited them in

I was lonely and needed friends

They were there for me

Whenever I needed them

They understood me

Unlike the obnoxious little-upper-middle-class-brats

At my Private Jewish Day School

Who excluded me from every club they started

I started my own club

It was just for me

And Greta

And James

And Fellingham

They were my friends

But no one else could see them

No one else could hear them.

It Started

One day in school

I was at morning recess on the playground

I was sitting in the yellow tunnel

That led to the blue slide

And I was thinking about

Jumping off the top of the slide

Just to get some attention

“I think it’s a good idea”

The voice came from next to me

I whipped around and She was there

She was a girl my age

She had longish reddish hair

And was wearing a blue jean jumper

With a Pink T-shirt underneath

Her tights were pink too

And one of her eyes was blue

The other one was green

I thought that she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen

I knew she was special

Because she was shimmering around the edges

And slightly transparent in certain areas

I figured this was what people meant

When they said they had an imaginary friend

I asked her

And she said

“Yes, my name is Greta and I’m your imaginary friend.”

And I smiled

Because I’d never had an imaginary friend before.

That Night at Dinner

I told my mom that I had an imaginary friend

I told my mom that her name was Greta

I told my mom what she was wearing

And that she’d played hopscotch with me

And that we’d swung on the swings together.

My mom smiled and exclaimed to my dad

“What a wonderful imagination she has”

My dad agreed and we finished eating our stir fry tofu

I was happy they approved of my new friend

It never occurred to me that Greta

Was different than other kids’ imaginary friends

I didn’t know that other kids

Couldn’t see their imaginary friends

Couldn’t hear their imaginary friends

And couldn’t smell the bubble gum scent

Of their imaginary friends

I thought that

For once

I was normal

Maybe

Maybe if they had all faded away

To that secret corner of the world

Where all imaginary friends go

As children get too old for them

Maybe then I would have been okay.

Instead, I met James

He came later in that year

Of six-year-old dreams and hopes and fears

He came while I was playing Mancala with Greta

He dressed differently than other children I knew

When I asked him why

He explained he was from 1904

I didn’t bother to ask him how he got to the year 2010

I just accepted by then

That sometimes weird things happened to me

And I figured

That sometimes weird things happened to everyone

And I never heard about them

Because they were the kinds of things no one talked about

Ever

I never mentioned James to my parents

Ever

Fellingham

Was different from Greta and James

He was an adult man

He wasn’t nice

He said mean things to me

He called me names

He tried to scare me

Sometimes Fellingham made me cry

I let him into my club

And tried to play with him

Because I thought that I could change him.

Even though Greta and James

Did actually fade away

Into that place of outgrown imaginary friends

I heard more and more of Fellingham

And two new beings

One of them I didn’t ever see

He was more of a bodiless voice in my head

That at times would overpower even my own thoughts

As he narrated what I was doing

And how and when and why

He was like the narrator in some

Twisted

Modern

Fairy tale

I think

If I had to place a marker

At the point in my life

Where I stopped being normal

And started being crazy

And disordered

I would put it there

Because for me

Crazy is the presence

Of unshakable mental pain and anguish.