Humanely Being

So my 14yo Dter saw the tail end of “A Dream of Riddles”. She knows I blog, and would rather I write up my dreams than walk around muttering about them. She knows I dream some “really fucked up shit”, and we laugh about it sometimes.

For some reason, she keeps telling me I should be a professional writer, but she’s just 14. What the hell do kids know? (Am I right?)

She saw the parting blow, “It must be growing season. My horns itch.”, and laughed heartily. “Another dream, Mom?” “Yes, another dream.”

A few minutes later, she asked, “Why would you dream you had horns?”. I evaded the question for a bit but she asked me again.

I don’t hide my issues from her. She saw me when I was batshit, full nervous breakdown, medicated to the point of senility. And she has watched me recover and reclaim myself. Usually, she’ll understand that despite our openness, there are some things that I am uncomfortable talking to her about.

“No, really, Mom. That’s not about you dreaming you’re something else. That’s you dreaming about you. Why would you dream you had horns?”

“Because, Dter, often times, I don’t see myself as a person. Sometimes, I feel like I’m a monster wearing a human skin. All I’ve gone through in my life has broken something deep inside me, and I don’t feel human. And sometimes, the sentiment shows up in my dreams.”

She stood there for a few minutes, processing what I had said. Earlier in the day, she had mentioned an illness that had temporarily disfigured a family member. She had struggled not to burst into tears at the sight, and was worried of running from fright. I admitted I was struggling not to burst into laughter, and the sight did not bother me in the least. The look of her face when I said that made me regret my words at once. “It’s NOT funny!”, she yelled at me. “No, it’s bloody hilarious.”, was my calm reply. “That’s not normal! How could you be so callous?”, was all she could say before crying. I never answered that question then.

That conversation seemed to hang again between us. All the little ways I don’t react like most people were adding up. I was waiting for her to declare me what I already suspect about myself. I’m a psychopath, one snap away from full tilt.

She looked at me strangely, with a mix of unbelief and anger. “THAT’S FUCKING BULLSHIT!” She screamed at me, surprising me with her fierceness. She stormed away, raging, leaving me sitting in my room surprised at the outburst.

Having walked off the initial rage, she came back to me to say a few more things. “You are the most compassionate, understanding, caring, humane, person I know! Yea, you have a strange sense of humor, but you give a fucking shit about things that most other people I know wouldn’t even pause to consider. How could you say that about yourself?”

She stopped. I counted four breaths and began to answer the hanging question. She cut me off. “No, don’t answer that, Mom. Because I know. I know what happened to you as a kid, I know what your school did to you, and I know what this family did to you. And it’s all BULLSHIT. Yes, you’re broken. But you’re not a monster.” She left my room and immersed herself in a computer game to dissipate the rage.

I feel less of a human after her outburst than before. That maybe I’m wearing this skin a little too well. The skin is filled out in all the right places, but inside I’m hollow and empty.

It’s a simple question. “What am I, then?” But there are so many values of “what”, they entangle themselves and leave me more confused merely by asking.