Aha!

Silly thing, but I had an aha moment a bit ago - watching "The Universe" on the History Channel, and for some unknown reason, I suddenly realized why I haven't ever gotten that tattoo I've wanted for more than a decade.  I can't decide what to get because I can't find any one thing that defines me.  Yeah, I know, obvious, isn't it?  But it was a startling thing for me.

So, I'm thinking about it seriously again - and have begun to look for an image of the stars, planets, galaxies, something similar to use.  My love of science and space is one of the few constants.  No matter who I've pretended to be, no matter who I thought I was, no matter who I tried to be, that love has always been there.  I'd like something exotic - colliding galaxies seen from the surface of an obviously other planet, maybe, or a view of Saturn's rings from the planet (if it had a surface we could stand on), moonrise from a planet with many moons -- something colorful, something beautiful, something other.

Because of course, that's what I am - something other, not within the normal range, something dropped through a crack in reality perhaps.  I certainly don't fit in, don't belong here.  Even as a child, I had the dream of stars, the deep longing - the need to stand under the influence of unearthly gravity beneath a green or purple sky, watching double moons crossing the sky.  I'm not from here.  And yes, I know how crazy that sounds.  I'm not about to start wearing tin foil or telling people I've been abducted by aliens.  I'm not, in that sense, nuts.  I am, however, not at home in this world, never have been.  I've always in moments of stress cried out (at least to myself) "I want to go *home*" and yet I've never been able to say where home is.  I still don't know.  I just know where it's not.  And it's certainly not here.