Slightly irregular.

The other day, Yann directed me to look to the left. He’s so bossy sometimes, trying to control my facial movements. Then, he informed me that I had a spot of blood in my eye. I love receiving this kind of information! It does not freak me out at all!

“It’s not blood, my right eye is just two different colours,” I said defensively.

Irked by my reaction, he took a picture of my eye as proof: it really was a 3mm spot of blood in the white of the eye. My lower eyelid had been twitching all day, which was annoying, but not alarming. But, the photo Yann had taken was enough to conjure the worrywart in me.

I told Yann that he had to play Web MD. No way was I going to subject myself to more gory eye photos! According to Dr. Internet via Yann, it was a subconjunctival hemorrhage. Mostly harmless, but on occasion turns out to be the spider eggs that have just hatched from inside the eyeball. Furthermore, the older I get, the more I can look forward to these spontaneous burst vessels.

This wasn’t a piece of fun new information to learn about myself.

I was about ten years old when I learned that my right iris was two different colours, and it started with a friend telling me I had blood in my eye.

How did I go for that long without noticing? For starters, I didn’t realize it was rare. Years of reading YA novels in which the character’s eyes were overly described had me believe the orange streak I had was nothing special. It’s on the same level as women who call themselves tall, and they’re 5’7″. True, but not woo-worthy.

You can see the orange in this photo, or this one, or this photo. Or in-person if the actual spot of blood that’s in there right now isn’t too startling.

Even stranger is how I went for more than twenty years, not understanding why spinning could make other people wobbly. I thought everybody was acting!

When I told Yann this, he had to confirm, “EVERYONE? You thought EVERYONE was acting?”

“Yes.”

I found it quaint how excited my friends were by the spinning rides at amusement parks.

“Mmm! G-Forces!” For me, the most amusing part of those rides was watching my friends stumble out of the exit, all giddy. I’d be completely unaffected, yet trying to fit in with some fake enthusiasm.

As it turns out, I was the oddball. I hadn’t just lost my sense of hearing, but also my sense of balance. It was a grand revelation: of course, my balance sucked, my vestibular system was bust! While I’m unaffected by spinning, the darkness makes me walk like I’m drunk as I can’t see where I am going very well.

Then, when I was twenty-five, I learned that I had a thermoregulation disorder. Is it not typical for the hands and feet to feel numb and cold while indoors? Putting on gloves is supposed to jump-start the circulation in my fingers? Again, I figured this was a thing that happened to everybody. Nobody likes being called a wimp, but I secretly believed that people who were calling me a wimp for being cold-intolerant were right.

Enduring pain and discomfort regularly do not make me a wimp: Raynaud syndrome is a beast.

My latest “I am a Beautiful and Unique Snowflake!” moment happened during the Dream episode of The Mind, Explained. (It’s on Netflix.)

I am a Lucid Dreamer.

I am such a control freak that I control even my dreams. It’s not something I’m able to do consistently, but it happens more often than not. Before I fall asleep, I’d set up the stage in my mind and then direct the entire scene while asleep. So, when people say, “In your dreams!” I can make it happen.

When I have an unplanned dream, my subconscious self would often show up partway and take charge of where the dream’s headed. Only when I’m not lucid dreaming, are my dreams completely warped. Lynchesque, even.

The strangest of strange dreams that I’ve had is understanding that I’m in a dream, yet having no control over what’s happening. When I find my dream character powerless, I try and exit the dream. Either I wake up within the dream, only to realize that I’m still dreaming (meta-dreaming!) or, I try to pinch myself awake without success.

There was a time when I physically forced my eyelids open and found myself struggling to detach from my dream state, all while my eyes were still rolled back into my head. I remember rising from the bed and struggling to get my mind to match my physical alertness. Hypnopompic hallucinations, maybe?

Not normal. Apparently.

How could I have known any of the above were unusual when they have always been my normal? And, what other abnormalities lies within me that I have yet to discover?