my careless contagion

When did I realize I experience the world differently than other people? I've tried to pinpoint when it all began. It must have started in my family unit at an early age, as I don't recall a particular moment of realization. Once my brain stopped trying to find that blip of time, it turned to the possible reasons why I felt so odd. The disconnect I felt from other people and their experiences was a clue that something wasn't right. Although I was a healthy weight and size when I was born, my health began to suffer soon after. I got pneumonia when I was a baby. I didn't grow or thrive like my brothers. In short, I was the runt of the litter.  As time went on, my mother became increasingly frantic about finding solutions for my physical state. It the age of 2.5, I was only 20 pounds. I had terrible digestive problems and couldn't seem to get well. After going to a doctor, it was revealed I had chronic impacted bowels. The doctor, by hand, disimpacted me. This...

My brothers and I dressed in our Sunday finest. Family get-togethers can be hard for me. As someone I once knew would say, "Going home reminds of why you left." And, for me, there were so many reasons. Why did I move more than 1,000 miles away from my parents and hours away from my brothers? Even though they were a day's drive away, I still didn't visit them unless I was rolling through on my way to some other place. Even then, I often wouldn't stop. At first glance, it would seem that I'm a bad son and brother. I can't really deny that, but there's more to the story. I have two brothers; the oldest is seven years older. The other is three and a half years older. I was never unaware of my status as the youngest, the smallest, the runt. It was constantly reinforced. When my brothers got BMX bikes, I got a retro girly-looking thing. With training wheels. Hot Liner. All the kids wanted one, right? Perpetually tagging along and r...

My parents in 1984 surveying the house they were having built. I have this memory, but not because I actually remember it. I was too young to remember it, but the story was retold often enough by my mother that it seems like I actually have the memory.  I was very young. It was the mid-1980s. My parents had a house built (which went wildly over budget) in 1984 on Happy Hollow Street in a little town in the Southern Black Hills in South Dakota. Parents raised their kids a little differently then than they do now. There was also the matter of finances, which meant that a babysitter wasn't always possible. My parents had a colleague leave their company and start up a competing business across the street. In order to compete, they were putting in 100 hour weeks, both of them. This continued for years.  My mom didn't want to work, but my dad was the boss and women were working a lot in those days, so he said she should too. She started out as the bookkeeper, setting ty...