It always makes me laugh when people ask, "Tell me about yourself?" as if I can be summed up in a couple of choice sentences. Besides that, where do you begin? I could tell you about my hobbies or give you a long list of my favourites. I could paint you a vague overview of my past, with the details miniscule and pixelated. I could describe to you the people in my life and my relationship to all of them. But none of those things are who I am. They are only microscopic pieces of a much greater puzzle. The trouble is, that to really know someone requires time - and time is exactly the one thing which we are so often not willing to give.
People like to rely on a list of statistics about you written out for them in black and white. That way, they can flick through at their leisure and see who matches up to their impossibly high expectations, distorted beyond reconciliation by our ever-growing pursuit for factual perfection. What these people never seem to question is, do objective facts really mean anything when it comes down to what a person is actually like? I never used to want anyone to find out the fact that I have something wrong with my eyes. I always wanted someone to get to know me first. That way, I would have a chance to show them that I am so much more than that as a person, before they dismissed me as a stereotype of what they thought they knew. Sometimes, even when you play it that way, on the day that the truth comes out, everything changes.
Even in the 21st Century, people can have wonderful relationships for years on end and then one day, one of them discovers something about the other - a fact that they may have been born with or something which has developed naturally within them, entirely out of their control - and, all of a sudden, they can no longer be seen in the same way.
This is why, when some people discover new information about themselves, they keep it all burrowed away inside - a skeleton in their closet - for fear that the ones they love most will abandon them if they ever find out their secret.
Other times, people around you may loosely be aware of this fact about you already, but not really understand its importance to your life. And so, out of the blue, while you're going along as you always do, suddenly somebody sees the visual representation of what they discovered ages ago and have known all along, but have never experienced in this stark way before. It's your own personal normal, something you have accepted and deal with every day accordingly. Still, again, it has the power to change the way somebody looks at you.
The funny thing is that it's always been there. If you liked someone as a person before, when a new fact about them which was previously over-shadowed in the background comes to light, it doesn't change who they are at all. Their personality is still the same. They are still all of those incredible things that you have come to admire and cherish. They still have the ability to do everything they could in the past - because, guess what, they've been doing it the whole time!
I have been in situations where somebody has suddenly realised how much more of a struggle things can occasionally be for me and from then on, they feel as though they can dictate what I am and what I am not able to do, based on that. It is amazing how people make the word "difficult" an instant synonym for "impossible" at these times. The reality, of course, is that it has been difficult for me all along. Yet surely the mere fact that this has entirely escaped their notice for so long means that I can do it - and pretty well by the sounds of things!
I'm still me. I'm still a person. And no person is just any single fact.
There are so many facts which make up who every person in this world is. Some of them are facts relating to appearance, others are personality and still others are things like disability, sexuality, family background, race - the list goes on and on. Some facts come in large groups and others make up minorities. Some facts we have in common and others sculpt our subtle differences. All too often, people forget to see the full picture. One fact can never define anyone. One fact can never change who somebody is. One fact can certainly never make anything impossible.
The ignorant run from factual differences. The wise know that our differences are to be embraced. Personally, I think they create character. Out of perspective, new information about someone means they can never be the same again. In perspective, one single fact amongst the vast make-up of millions of others in any given individual really doesn't make any difference whatsoever. When it comes down it, no two people in the world share completely identical statistics. We all have our own, unique ways of doing everything. If anything, it's what makes life interesting.
Some facts change and some are always there, but try and make a list of all the facts about you. Trust me, you will have far too many. This is because, as people, we are so much more than singular pieces of factual information - and that alone is probably the most important fact you need to remember about anyone.
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