My Idiosyncrasy Revealed
By Vicki Tapia While I’ve always felt I don’t quite “fit in,” a couple of years ago I learned I actually do share an oddity with about one percent of the world’s population. I am a synesthete, meaning I experience grapheme-color synesthesia. Huh? What is that? Is it contagious? Is it dangerous? Well, no, it is neither. Grapheme-color synesthesia means my perception of letters and numerals is associated with color. Yes, that’s correct. Whenever I think of a letter, word or number, it has a color or hue in my mind. This perception has been with me as far back as I can remember, is involuntary and completely consistent over…
Who are you? Where am I?
It was the weekend of our family reunion and almost everyone was gathered together at my parent’s condo to celebrate a milestone. Our patriarch, my dad, was turning 90. When the front doorbell rang, Mom opened the door, took one look at her oldest granddaughter and asked in a perplexed tone of voice, “Who are you?” After a moment of silence, we all laughed a little uncomfortably, but brushed it off, rationalizing the comment as a manifestation of Mom’s stress in caring for Dad, who had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. It was not mentioned again. Our family continued to somehow normalize or overlook the ever-increasing signs that something was…
Author | Adventurer | Advocate
