(Excerpt from a Washington Post article about being “different.” For the whole article, click here.)
Skylar has recently become the topic of after-dinner conversation at my house. I have a very hard time accepting what my wife, Kathleen, has to say, at least in part because it is so incongruous with my early life. Skylar, according to Casey, definitely is not normal. She is exceptional. She has a gift, and not the type that has to be adjudicated on an IQ test. The stories she tells are better, in so many ways, than normal life. Casey and his wife cherish all four of their children in their own unique ways. Skylar’s world is to be valued as Skylar’s world. Plain and simple.
Still, I silently have had my doubts. As the pandemic has raged on, I have watched many people — adults and children alike — succumb to its pressures, revert to self-soothing behaviors, retreat into their own strange little worlds. And I have watched anxious people demand normalcy with something like a white-knuckled fury. Normal. We need to get back to normal. We need to be normal. So I have a lingering fear that Skylar feels more alienated than the rest of the world, that she will grow up with the same nagging thoughts that she doesn’t fit in. Yesterday my fears were compounded when Kathleen brought home a poem written by Skylar. She wrote:
Covid 19
This will last forever
I refuse to believe that
Things will change
I am positive that
We are all doomed
It is not true that
I will leave my house again
Everything will remain the same
I do not believe that
I will see my friends again
I know that
Everything will remain boring forever
It is impossible that
We can get through this
I believe that
We will all die
It is a lie that
The vaccine is real
So, I was right, Skylar was in pain after all, I thought. She was struggling to feel normal. But that wasn’t actually the full story — I was wrong about Skylar.
Kathleen told me Casey got emotional when Skylar gave him the poem, because he and his wife have tried so hard to keep things positive for their children during this time. His daughter just laughed at her normal-not-so-normal father.
“Dad, now you’re supposed to read it from the bottom up.”
Skylar Monahan is a seventh grader, aspiring author, softball playing Girl Scout Cadette and self-proclaimed Ravenclaw. Casey Monahan works for a digital freight tech company and is a father of four. They both approved this essay. John Kaag is a philosophy professor and author of “Sick Souls, Healthy Minds: How William James Can Save Your Life.”