People tell you your entire life, since the beginning of your understanding of language, that life isn’t fair. You think this means you’ll be passed over for a promotion you really deserve, or that your nemesis will become president and sign a decree saying everyone with red hair has to wear a stupid yellow and pink polka-dotted hat whenever it’s colder than 45 degrees.

You’re told that if you do everything “the right way” your life will be easier, the blows absorbed more readily. And you believe it all, and when it becomes apparent that these tales of doing things “right” are as made up as the fairy tales you used to love, it takes a while to put yourself back together.

But, you do.

You put yourself back together, you find people who can help you. You put blinders on, trying in vain to refrain from comparing your life to others, refraining from assigning points of worthiness upon your friends.

You have panic attacks, you get fat. You get skinny again. You start drinking, you stop drinking. You start again. You shrewdly weed people from your life–people who have taken more than they have ever given. You have realized life may be too short to put up with people who haven’t discovered this, yet.

You reflect, you mourn. You start over.

You go shopping with your cousin. You talk about how there used to be three of you, and now there’s two. You reminisce about the time one of you laughed so hard about something no one can remember that she fell down in the middle of JC Penney. You talk about how the real unfairness of life isn’t that bad shit happens, but the fact that good stuff does. The two of you wish everyone admitted their weaknesses, took off their masks. Let everyone see them for what they really were instead of what they wished they were.

You let go of the dreams you had–the dreams of being normal, the dreams of living like everyone else. You let go of fantasies, you embrace reality. You start blogs (here is Amber’s brand-spanking-new one: thisrarelyhappens.wordpress.com).

You post honest, raw, sometimes hurtful words, showing everyone how much being human sucks sometimes. You learn to take the blinders off, and let people see you how you are, without apology. And you’re nothing like you thought you’d be, but that’s ok.

It’s just a little paradigm shift.