Striving for Normality

Striving For Normality

“Do you need help?”

I have been hearing variations of this question for as long as I can remember. I hear it from my teachers, I hear it from my parents, and sometimes I even hear  from complete strangers. They don’t say it, but I can tell that they pity me. After all of these years, it doesn’t phase me anymore. I guess I’ve just come to accept the fact that I’m not like everyone else. Questions like this have become a part of me that I can’t seem to shake, making me question if I am competent enough to live a regular life. I have listened to the doubts of others for too long, and have adopted them as my own.

Every morning when I wake up, I roll out of bed and take a look in the mirror, hoping that the disaster that I call my life was all just a bad dream. But that’s never the case. All I ever see is failure staring back at me; failure to be good enough for the people I care about, failure to change their opinions of me, and most of all, failure to love myself.

I can almost never go unnoticed. Everywhere I go, people stare, thanking G-d for not making them or anyone they care about like me. Honestly, if I was in their position, I would do the same.

I have grown to accept my situation, as well as the fact that there is nothing I can do to change it. I accept that this is the way things are, but I still hate it.

I wish I was like everyone else; never the center of attention, never getting special treatment, and most of all, just being treated like a normal person. Unfortunately, I have lost faith that this will ever be the case. It’s simply not possible for someone like me in today’s society.

Don’t get me wrong, there are many benefits to my situation. I always am allowed first entry into events, I get my own personal restroom everywhere I go, I always have an available parking spot, and many other things that sound great.

But no matter how great the benefits may be, I would give all of them up for a chance to walk, even if it was only for one day. I roll through the streets and dream about what this sensation would be like. I would die for the opportunity to experience this, without hesitation.

So when people who are walking down the street stop to ask me if I need help, all I can do is look down and accept their offer, hoping that maybe someday I won’t get special treatment, that maybe someday I won’t be the center of attention, that maybe someday I will be treated like any other person would be.

After all of these years of figuring out who I am, I am still left with one question. Why? Why, G-d? Why did you have to make me like this?