WHITNEY CURTIS| features editor
When I was a little girl I drew a picture of a “Got Milk?” sign with a circle and a slash through it—a symbol that clearly stated, “No. I don’t have milk... ever.” Since birth, I have been allergic to milk.
When other kids enjoyed pizza at Chuck-E-Cheese with their favorite mouse while playing games, I ate sandwiches and suffered through endless questions: “Why aren’t you eating with the rest of us?” “What’s wrong with you?” “What? Are you an alien or something?”
And since I couldn’t respond with a, “Well, I’m anaphylactic, so my body sees milk as a foreign object and attacks, which causes my body to shut down,” I said instead in a very pitiful small voice, “I’m allergic” or “I’m not allowed.”
In a way though, I am an alien. My life has been “abnormal” since the beginning. A big day at the Curtis household was when my mom found something new I could eat at the grocery store.
When other girls cry over boyfriends and are soothed by their two favorite men, Ben & Jerry, I look to soy products and fruit for my comfort. My fi rst taste of a somewhat real pizza (made without cheese, of
course) was when I was 15-yearsold. Although my mom is a great cook and made me treats at home, going out was a nightmare. I hated asking the ingredients in everything I ordered at a restaurant, and I loathed going to friends’ houses to play because of my self-consciousness.
My allergies held me back from things I wanted to do, and were a good excuse for me not to do the things I needed to, but didn’t want to do.
Today, I am confi dent enough to make myself try new things, and go places where I know I will be asked why I am not eating with the rest of the group. My life is too important to me to let myself be held back by my fears. In many ways, I have come a long way. I realize that everyone is made uniquely and that through my differences, I can encourage others in their own uniqueness.
At least that’s what I believe most days, but there are still many days when doubt creeps in and when I begin to wish, as my pastself did, that I was just like everyone else.
There are moments when fear binds my stomach as I hope that no one will notice me eating my homemade meal or ask questions about “my lack of participation” in eating the cake and ice cream with everyone else.
For some reason as humans, we tend to want to blend in with the crowd, and hide our differences. It’s scary to be different from “the norm.” But what is normal really? Am I really that much less normal than the girl next to me who doesn’t eat anything white? Or the guy who won’t eat tomatoes because they’re slimy? Not really. I’m just a different kind of normal because God made us to be normally different.
So, I challenge you APU, don’t let your fear of being different from “the norm” keep you from doing things you are supposed to be doing— like having fun at Chuck-ECheese parties.
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