The other side of the glass

They can’t see me. They’ve never been able to see me where I sit on this side of the looking glass, so close to their reality I can reach out and brush it with my fingertips if I tried. I wont, it just leaves me lost and bewildered in the wake of confusion that rushes swiftly through my mind as I try to decipher a world that assaults every sense I have. I can walk beside them and what they see is a warped reflection of the truth, cast in the image they desire to perceive, but never do they open their eyes and see the extent of the fiction they have created. Heaped with a burden of expectations I always seem to fall behind, losing my companions to the crowd that surges around us and defines the edges between my world and theirs. Unable to keep up with the flow of socializing it’s easier to just fade away.

I’ve spent most of my life creeping around the edges. I’m a social voyeur living vicariously through those who do it with such ease. It fascinates me, the way people interact, and I view life like one big sociology study. Sitting quietly in the background taking mental notes on what people are saying and the way they are acting, no one would even notice I’m there unless I stood up to speak and although I have a lot to say I’m rarely sure how to say it.

I feel myself retreating, looking for the way out, disconnecting from their side of the veil a little more each day. The desire to meet them on their terms is an ebbing tide that shows no signs of returning. My pride insists on acceptance and there are only a few who can see past the smoke and mirrors to recognize the value of the real person that hides inside. Those who can respect me for my differences I’ll meet halfway, for their differences deserve to be respected in turn. Those who would continue to heap futile expectations on me should know that they heap them on a husk of what was once there to be burdened.

I still want that connection. It’s the biggest dichotomy in my life. My need to be left alone and my need to connect with the world at large tug me in opposite directions some times when I want to reach out and touch someone nearby. I’m lucky, now, that I have someone who chooses to exist beside me, grant me that human touch I desire so badly, to do it on my terms and see it for what its worth, to appreciate the things I have to offer. I’m lucky to have met someone whose needs run so parallel and yet opposite to my own that we find strength and satiation in the flash floods that consume us. Someone who can see the reality Through Glass.