Thoughts on a Saturday morning

Funny what pops into your head as you lay in bed…

Once again, this morning, it struck me that I wasn’t your “usual” child. Even as I aged, I never had typical yearnings (and I can say with certainty, that I’m still an unusual adult). 🙂 While many of my friends had their entire lives set in stone, you know, dreaming of living in the burbs, married with two children, I never experienced those yearnings. Oh sure, the thoughts ran through my mind on occasion, but they didn’t consume me; I never felt maternal urges. If it happened, fine. If it didn’t, it was equally okay with me. My wiring was different (due in part to a jumbling of psychological and physiologic factors). You could say it wasn’t in my DNA.

What I did have was a burning thirst for knowledge. I couldn’t get enough of the world surrounding me. I was reading at the age of four, and by the time I attended first grade, I was perusing the newspaper with my parents. And throughout grade school, they and my teachers were always scurrying, supplying me with extra material to keep my busy mind saturated. I still remember visiting my favorite aunt and uncle’s house, and immediately running to their glass bookcase where the World Book of Encyclopedia lured me with its wisdom.

I did have one dream though – I wanted to work for NASA. Read my blog, Chasing New Horizons – Alan Stern. However, that dream never came to fruition, when my father unexpectedly died when I was twelve, and a series of paralyzing events evolved, leaving me lost, dispelling any belief I had in myself. Hey kid, put a band-aid on it. You’ll be fine. It’s something that’s come back to haunt me because my mother expected me to move ahead as though nothing had transpired. However, that is for another day, another blog, (and a book?). They’re events I need to talk about, all these years later…