Since I was little, I’ve seen the world differently. Someone would say, “The sky is blue,” and I’d be thinking, Yes, but look how high it is. Look at that bird. Look at the light, the shadows, those big white puffy clouds…
SQUIRREL!
And just like that, we were discussing how one cloud looked like a dog, or a dragon, or maybe Jesus riding a lawn mower.
I could stare into the treetops for hours. Same with the creek. I was one of those kids who was everywhere—usually barefoot, slightly dirty, and completely unsupervised by today’s standards. My best friend and I rode our bikes from one end of town to the other, bought penny candy, caught crawdads in the creek, and sat watching cars go by while we planned our escape from that stupid little town because it was sooooo lame.
That was almost 45 years ago.
We’re still friends. Actually, “friends” doesn’t quite cover it anymore. We’re family—the kind you choose before you’re old enough to understand what choosing family even means.
Looking back, I realize I was always trying to be something—or someone—I wasn’t. I didn’t want to be different. I didn’t want to be awkward or, let’s just say it, downright strange. I didn’t understand why I felt so unlike everyone else.
I just knew I was different.
And it sucked.
I liked boys. Boys did not like me—not like that, anyway. Even funnier, my first two boyfriends later came out as gay. Apparently, I wasn’t a girlfriend so much as a warm-up act. I like to think I helped them along their journey.
I was never what anyone would call a natural beauty. I cleaned up okay, but that took effort, equipment, and more time than I was willing to give on an average Tuesday. I was a tomboy until suddenly I wasn’t. Then came the world of Rave hairspray, blue eyeshadow, questionable fashion, and bad decisions.
So many bad decisions.
Those years ended my childhood early and sent me down roads I was sure I would never find my way back from. Darkness has a way of making you believe it is permanent. It convinces you that the worst thing you’ve ever done—or the worst thing that has happened to you—is the truest thing about you.
It isn’t.
By my mid-twenties, I was marrying the love of my life. I came as a ready-made family: two kids, two parents, a truckload of emotional baggage, and one badass attitude.
He loved me anyway.
Somehow, little by little, he showed me how to love myself.
Eventually.
I wish I could say love instantly transformed me into a soft, glowing woman who baked bread and spoke kindly to everyone. It did not. I was miserable for years. Hateful sometimes. Rude more often than I’d like to admit. I had walls, weapons, and an emergency escape route for every emotion.
But I was loyal as hell.
And I was loved.
I didn’t begin to soften until I cared for my dad after his stroke. That was both the worst and the best thing that ever happened to me—which feels terrible to say, but it’s true.
Caring for him broke me. It exhausted me. It stripped away every bit of armor I had spent a lifetime building. But walking beside my dad through his final years changed me in a way I still can’t fully explain.
It was spiritual.
Sacred, even.
There was pain in it—deep, ugly, breath-stealing pain—but there was tenderness too. Somewhere between the fear, the exhaustion, the grief, and the love, I became someone new.
Or maybe I finally became who I had always been.
After Dad, another journey began. First with Mom, and then, eventually, with myself.
I started looking at the woman in the mirror and asking, Who the hell are you?
And where have you been?
Why had I kept her hidden for so long? Why hadn’t I allowed her to feel her feelings, love the people who loved her, and actually live this life instead of simply surviving it?
Why was she so afraid to let her voice be heard?
Why did she pull away from being loved, wanted, and needed?
Why did I believe I had to protect her at all costs—even when my way of protecting her was slowly suffocating her?
At 55, I’m still figuring it out. I still see too much, feel too much, think too much, and get distracted halfway through—
SQUIRREL!
But I’m beginning to understand that the strange little girl staring into the treetops was never broken. She wasn’t too much. She wasn’t looking at the world incorrectly.
She was simply seeing all of it.
The height of the sky.
The bird in the distance.
The shifting light.
The dog-shaped cloud drifting away before anyone else thought to notice it.
She was always there.
And after all these years, I think I’m finally ready to let her live.
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