Dear Maha,
So many things come to mind – I know what you mean, I don’t know what you mean, I really know what you mean! All of those and more. It is real, that different thing, but it doesn’t define you. Your post made me think of a few experiences. One was of meeting a lady in a headscarf. She was also dressed with a covering thing (I don’t know if that has a name?) You know- a sort of cloak and it prevents others from seeing what you are wearing underneath. I was in The Gap shopping in the sales with my daughter at the end of December, and it was a nightmare. I was stuck in a queue a mile long to but a single shirt and this lady was looking at the rack of clothes nearest to me. As I was just standing there I was naturally looking around, and saw her shoe was untied. I noticed the lace trailing behind her. So I tapped her on the arm – and she looked up at me, frightened. I thought – ohhh, no!? what have I done?? I didn’t mean to make her upset. I smiled at her and said, ‘I noticed your shoe was untied.’ -and she smiled back and said thank you. Whether different because of an outward sign, like her clothing, or something not so visible – I’ve had students with different challenges that aren’t visible, but still make them ‘feel’ different – being different can be so embedded with difficulty. And even though I am so so positive and do believe in hope, there are real challenges and what you said is valid and worth saying. It takes courage to say these things. But – it is important to keep that hope. There are still some things that could divide people and don’t. I am SO glad there is not a prejudice toward hight (I’m 5 ft. 1 if I stretch). I wonder why that slipped through the net? Height is just as visible as these other things, but it gives me hope. The difficulties are deeply embedded in our different cultures, but they can be unlearned too. I love to look to the children- my son (8) has a friend at school and I wanted to see which boy he was talking about – ‘he’s the one with curly hair, mummy’. Curly hair trumped any other differences. He couldn’t see the skin colour, or hear the accent, and I love that. The last thing is that after reading your post, something triggered a poem from my own childhood- Listen to the Musn’ts by Shel Silverstein. I could hear it – must have been set to music on some PBS programme when I was little- sang it here for you 🙂 https://soundcloud.com/laura_cello/listen-to-the-musnts-child
You are not alone in being different. It is certainly not easy, but in this world of conformity, I can’t imagine you being you if you were just the same as anyone else.