3:25pm December 18, 2011

Across The Divide part two

[This is Part Two of Across The Divide, a long article I’m breaking up into sections so it’s more manageable.  Please read the parts in order so it will make sense. Here are the links to the other parts:  Part One, Part Two (you are here), Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Eight.]

People see the end product of my writing. They don’t know that the process of creating it is like navigating a maze in the dark.  They don’t know that it can often take me years if not decades to get the words out. And that word combinations I use more frequently in realtime have to be rehearsed over and over again.

They don’t see me when the bulk of the true writing takes place.  Curled up in a ball in the dark unable to move a single inch.  Or else, body moving all over the place without being able to stop it.

Or they do see me at those times. And they think that I’m incapable of the most rudimentary thought, let alone writing.  They talk to people near me instead of me.  Or they talk slowly and loudly.  Or they wave their hands in my face.  Or they call me retard.  Or… much worse.

Either way… people who only see me at one point in my life never seem capable of imagining that I could look very different at some other time.  Only people who know me well – or people enough like me to accurately guess how I operate – understand that my entire life is a juggling act of able to do one thing but not others. Which one thing and which others depend on the moment.

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