I don’t want to be normal. I have gotten past that for the most part, and I know that I would be miserable trying to be a normie. I mean, I try to fit in as best as I can without making it uncomfortable for me, but at the heart of it and me, I would be so much happier if I could just let my freak flag fly.
But I know that I am too much for the gen pop. Even people who don’t consider themselves normies are, for the most part, more normal than I am. Except for the true freaks. I’m not enough on the fringe for them. I’m a weirdo in so many ways, but I’m also straitlaced in that I don’t drink or do drugs. There are many reasons for that, but it makes it difficult for me to fit into the artistic scene.
Here’s the thing. Sometimes, when I’m really down,I wish I was normal. I wish I was not neurodivergent. I wish I was white, and one of the binary gender (cran’t go quite as far as to wish I were a man). I wish I wasn’t a night owl.
By the way, that is so hard to change. I remember being six or seven and stuffing a t-shirt or towel under my door so I could read until midnight. I taught myself to read around age four. I would read until around midnight and then fall asleep. It did not matter what time I went to bed–I just could not sleep until eleven or midnight.
I say this because I know that it’s hard on parents when their kids don’t want to go to bed at what is considered an appropriate time, but it’s no picnic for the kid, either. I will admit that I have shitty bedtime practices, but no matter what I do, I cannot go to bed before midnight. These days, it’s more like 4 or 5 a.m.
The only time I’ve been able to sleep on a normal schedule was after my medical crisis, and I was heavily drugged at the time. And recuperating from dying. When I went to bed a week after waking up, I was still extremely heavily drugged. And very tired. I had no problem going to bed at ten or so and getting up at six. This lasted until the drugs wore off and my parents went back to Taiwan.
Now, I’m back to an opposite-than-normal people sleep schedule, and I’m not happy about it. Mostly, though, because I’m very aware that it’s considered bad/deviant/lazy. Every time I manage to claw my sleep schedule to going to bed at one or so, I can’t keep it up.
For whatever reason, once I get it down to one in the morning, my brain freaks out and then I’m back to three or four in the morning. I don’t have any practical reason to get up at any given time, but I don’t like being that far off normal people scheduling.
Life would be so much easier if I was just somewhat normal. I’m not asking for anything wild. I don’t mind being Asian, so I’ll keep that. Gender, well, I can deal with being a woman, I guess. As long as I don’t have to do anything overtly feminine.
I will say that where I live, I don’t feel pressured to perform femininity. My neighborhood is extremely progressive, and people are really nice to each other. Just my immediate neighborhood, mind. Ten minutes in either direction, and it’s a whole different story.
Honestly, if people would just chill the fuck out about gender, I would not care about being called a woman. It’s just that there are so many weighted expectations that come with that label that I don’t want to own it. Also, I have no affinity for it, though I do feel kinship with women in general. We have similar experiences, and that’s a genuine bond. Also, the women that I am close friends with all have similar views on gender that I do.
Basically, woman is a convenient label, but I chafe at it because of all the sexism. And because I truly don’t understand what it means to feel like a woman. I have tried and tried to look deep inside to discover what I feel, genderwise, and it’s a big blank. I have heard women talk about how their womanhood is so integral to their identity, and I just don’t get it.
I don’t have to get it, but it’s a big reason I disregard the whole idea of being a woman. If I were to be totally frank, I would prefer to call myself genderqueer because i like the word queer in general, but just as queer has come to mean gay, genderqueer is taken to mean nonbinary.
One thing I’ve learned over my decades is that people like things to be binary. Gay/straight; black/white; cis/trans; neurotypical/neurodivergent, etc. I’m someone who exists in the in-between, and while I’m usually comfortable there, it’s also a lonely feeling.
I wish for one week that I could be a white cishet Christian man, just to know what it’s like to be in the majority in several categories. To not even think about my opinion not mattering or being weird. Even white dudes who have anxiety seem to take for granted that their opinions are acceptable.
I don’t know what I would do if I were the majority, to be honest. Go mad with power? Probably not because I’m well aware of how people can misuse it, even if not on purpose.
It’s funny, though. Even as I contemplate what it would be like to be in the majority, my stomach tightens ever-so-slightly. I don’t think I would like it, even if I had the knowldege I currently have as I existed as the majority. If I didn’t have my current knowledge, then it would probably be better. However, then it would be defeat the purpose because I would not be able to make the comparison.
I’m tired. it’s time to go to bed. I will write one more post tomorrow.