My life one step ahead of the short bus...
You know, my roommate spoils me.
She reads up on psychology books and stuff like that, just for fun.  And she adores me.
I'm her own private case study.
And it's cool, she puts up with my weirdness.  We call it my being 'special'.  And I bet you guys thought that was just an old, tacky joke, telling the short bus kids that we're special?
I didn't actually ride on the short bus...but I was close.
I'm smart--I'm not =learning= disordered.  But I -am- mentally disordered.  I went to the 'normal' classes...most of the time.  But when people weren't looking, or people wouldn't notice, I was pulled out to meet with the teacher for the 'special' students.
But I thought it was something fun, something different, and I never realized until much later, until I was graduating high school....walking across that stage, and realizing...everything was a setup.  Carefully guided and carefully orchestrated, I'd been on the short bus the whole time...but nobody'd told me.
I suppose I was lucky...I got to go to normal classes and make normal friends, and I didn't have to have a custodian holding my hand and changing a diaper for me.
But....as often as I have severe issues with normals, as often as they've shouted at me that I belonged on the short bus, as often as they've told me I'm just fucked up...
I wish somebody'd told me earlier that I was one of the short bus kids.  I wish I'd known earlier why the normals have such a bad reaction to me.
I always knew it was because I was special, but....that's why it hurts so much to tell us that we're special...because even in jest...we don't get it.  We can smile and go, 'Yeah, I'm special!' and think it's a good thing.
I wish somebody had told me before that I was one of the broken castoffs of society.  I would've stopped trying to fit in with the normals, and made friends with the rest of the short bus kids.  It would've made my entire life so much easier.