Different

As I prepare to head down to Washington, D.C. in a couple of weeks, I am discovering more and more differences between me and my immediate family. 

Mom, for example, can't see UV light at all. (It's very rare, since you have to have two separate genetic abnormalities, but she gave me one of them: carrying the recessive red-green colorblindness allele on the X chromosome. The other is the brain's processing.) When we got our hands on a new camera for Washington, she held it up to the window and saw purple lines. I had to explain to her that those were the UV rays from the sun, and that I could see them most of the time. She finally understood why I refuse to step foot outside of the house if the sun is shining.

She also has executive functioning problems--the exact opposite of mine. Where I'm strong--planning the trip and finding tours--she is weak. But her strengths (mainly working memory, since mine goes straight to long-term) are extremely valuable to me as I try to plan.

Dad, however, is the only one of us with a decent sense of time. I spent three hours planning the trip last week, completely forgetting about my violin lesson. Mom didn't realize, either. Dad arrived home to find us working, and asked if we had forgotten.

But even the bits of my processing I take for granted as "normal" may not be quite so. As my daily headaches have progressed into weekly migraines, I've looked to find out why. And luckily for me, I think I figured it out. My visual processing (oh, good old brain of mine, always messing with me) is different from how it should be. Specifically, it's likely I have Irlen's Syndrome. After going through the checklist where three checks meant it was good to be tested, I managed to score a ridiculously high number...

Twenty-nine.

Yeah.

Darned brain. Why can't I process correctly? Oh, yeah. My seeing UV is a big part of it. I can see far more colors than I'm supposed to. But hopefully, before the school year gets fully into the swing of things in September, I can get some tinted lenses to correct my processing.

My whole life, I've known I'm different. 

My whole life, I've been quite strange.

My whole life, the world around me

Has remained while I have changed.