I hate it when people try to tell me my faults as if I didn’t know them already. I appreciate the honesty, truly I do. But, do they really think I was unaware? That they were the ones to open my eyes to the reality of my own imperfection? The fault of course is valid. It is not a fabrication or a lie. It exists. But that does not make me any less competant. Just because you discovered what I lack and put a name on it, gave it an identity, doesn’t mean that you know something that I don’t. People seem to wear their newly discovered knowledge of my flaws like a coveted boy-scout badge as if it granted them permission to puff out their chests and say “aha! I found it!”. As if it proves me human. The saddest part is that they believed me to be otherwise.

Now, don’t think that I believe myself superior. I don’t. Don’t think that I believe myself above reproach. I know I will always fall short. However, I will readily admit that I hold myself to standards rarely pursued by others my age. They look at me and think that I have put myself on a pedastal and that I am peering down at them. But really, I have put myself in a cage, only to be prodded and poked and analzyed and told “something is just not right about her.”

And then they find it. That glistening sign that I am one of them. The hidden crack in my fascade, a fault line to be exploited. They raise it up for all to see, validating their own self-worth and tearing down the person that they made me to be in their minds. But now, now that they have found what they were looking for, I am less than, no longer looming over their heads. And inevitably, it will happen again and again and again, until it has become something of a game to see how long I can balance on their ledge. How long till I break the strings. How long till my cage caves in. To those that fashion the bars, to those that forged the lock, and to those who hold the key, I offer you my plea:

I am human too.