So i spent a lot of my life thinking i was pretty normal. I mean, i knew i was sort of different from other people, but i thought everyone felt different on the inside. This was validated by the fact that my father really understood me.

I thought: obviously the people ypu are related to are more similar to you than people who are not. Also in ways other than physical. I did not realize how i acted was not “normal” until i finally realized my father wasn’t either.

He is a physics professor (surely that means he is a perfectly normal, functioning, member of society).

My father is also divorced. Twice. Within a few years of marriage. He has had the same pants for 30 years. You cannot even tell their original color.

He spends most of his time on his work, on his laptop he carries everywhere. Physics is his passion above all else. Above realtionships. Except maybe the one he has with me, apparently. His second ex-wife told me: you’re probably the only person he has ever managed to love.

Sometimes he forgets how to live, but in the years he has become very good at keeping himself in check. He eats well, sleeps enough, and goes for walks. But when he has to take care of himself he does it hastily. He realized he needs a routine to function, and determinately stuck to it. I can tell he hates it sometimes.

I can tell from the way he puts the dishes away, not caring if they clatter. How he cleans immediatly whenever he spills something. How he slams the door of the spice cabinet, how he eats incredibly quickly as if it were a task. From how he jumps off the couch in the afternoon, and how the ruins all his shoes by never untying the laces. He does these things like ripping off a band aid.

I see he only wears nice clothes when he goes to work, because he has learned that appearences matter. How he conciously, methodically, painstakingly crafted a version of himself that would be acceptable to society. I see that he puts on a polite and painfully empty smile when talking to colleagues. And I know he things most of his students are stupid.

Since I was little he always took my questions seriously. He also tried to teach me about maths and physics. When I could not stand doing divisions in elementary school, he tried to teach me about the binary system and how to do divisions with that. The next year he taught me trigonometry. I can’t say i ever became good at algebra, mostly because I am too distracted and make a lot of simple mistakes.

He did, however, make me realize my interest in geometry. I have a very good sence of space and shapes and can manipulate them easily. I used this talent a little for school, and a lot for art. He also supported my love for reading. Or rather, he started it by putting a copy of LotR in my hands at age 9.

He understands me when I tell him that the noise of the water hitting the sink hurts my ears sometimes. He said it happens when you focus too hard on something. He picks up on the same sounds and smells as i do, when other people don’t seem bothered at all. He gets what I mean by feeling “floaty”, and what it means to seem to be outside your own body.

I don’t share his passion for physics, but he always tells me about new and interesting things and shows me his simulations of ice crystals with graphite and tells me about how we know the universe is expanding. And honestly, for him, telling me about these things is the most emotionally significant form of expression he could give to me. And i feel it.

Most other people dissmiss it, and i understand that. Now. We’re both kinda off, in different but still quite similar ways. But all in all, i feel more and more often more and more human, now that i can see i am different, in the way i remember things, in the way i process them. Trying to define a quality that all humans must have to be considered humans is inherently dehumanizing.

So let’s see what i can do with my life. I hope to be able to connect with people better than my father does. I hope I won’t judge them as harshly as he does. I know that there are people that will understand me, and i know that there are people who do not, but nonetheless accept me. I want to find a place in society, even if it’s not anywhere near the top.

And since I’ve made it this far, even if I feel it’s way harder than it should be to ignore the thoughts, to fall asleep, to get up, to do all the things I neeed to do, I know that I can do it. And that I am allowed to do things differently. In a way that suits me. My dad got lucky, or maybe unlucky. He found his eternal passion he would do anything to pursue. Meanwhile I live comfortably in the knowledge that all I need is to live in a place near the sea.