Sometimes when I take the time, energy & courage to try and see the world as they do I find myself in stages of decompression, fighting the bends, the loneliness, the weariness—and it makes me want to run away. By myself, and fall asleep on the bottom of the ocean before the tide rises.

I should never apologize for who I am, they say, because they made me this way. I should never apologize, and I won’t, because I do the best I can. But it won’t ever be enough.