You could, in no way, term me 'normal.' Well, I suppose I have the 'normal' amount of visible eyes, and the 'normal' amount of limbs, and the 'normal' amount of mouths... At least that's what a doctor would say. But seriously, even in my school, where the 'norm' is weirdness, I am weird. The best word I've heard to describe it is 'DoublePlusWeird, ' compliments of a George Orwell fan. I'm just... well, I'm Tessa. Kind of like in that scene from The Sound of Music, where all the nuns are jumping around trying to define Maria? It's like that. Only please, all you high priestesses, do not start cavorting, because that could be dangerous. I mean, what if you were clumsy? Combine that with athames... Ouch.

Anyway. The point I am dancing around here is, half the reason I'm so DoublePlusWeird is that I've never lived completely in this world. (Only half- it would probably help if I didn't pretend to pray to the frog statue near the food court every day!) I'm here, abusing my poor old computer desk chair, but I'm also everywhere else, all at the same time. Some of my closest companions have been people I thought I'd made up, but later found out were my spirit guides; some of my most vivid memories are things that never, in this world, actually happened. Things like having my eyeballs rolling around in my mouth (very odd feeling), or hearing my phantom knife hurtle down to slice my mattress in the middle of the night. Or playing with my angel, Rosalind. (Her name probably isn't Rosalind, but she looked like Agatha Christie's daughter of the same name.) Or having her throw caustic remarks at me until, just to shut her up, I'd not perform whatever stupid, self-destructive act I was considering. Or, when I did perform that stupid, self-destructive act, having her pull me out through her bizarre mix of sarcasm, strength, and love. She was odd- is odd- especially when compared with the little flowy-white-dresses-and-pretty-flowers pictures of angels, but hey, she's worth gazillions of them! She saved me!

Now, no, I don't commune with faeries. Please don't ask me what 'loas' are; I have no idea, even after looking them up on Google. My truly vast bank of occult knowledge is gleaned mostly from fantasy books, inborn knowledge, common sense, and the few books I could find on Wicca that were not love spells, stories of personal journeys to the Afterlife and being chosen by the Goddess to perform some planet-saving task, or metaphysical twaddle. I've learned more from Jung, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Ken Wilber, and the co-director of my school than I probably ever will from the 'New Age' section of our friendly neighborhood chain bookstore. Forgive me, O Wiccan Purists, but 'New Age' literature is much too profitable a business to trust. I prefer to learn from myself.

Whoops. Was that a tirade? Sorry!

As I was saying, my formal knowledge/training/whatever is minimal. That would scare me, except I do about zero spells and the same number of rituals a year. I don't trust my mental state enough to rest such delicate burdens on it. Plus, is so much easier to do things mundanely! I think I said that in my last essay... Anyhow, what that means is that even while I live in multiple dimensions, I don't really work in all of them. My heart houses a six-month fetus with wide violet eyes and translucent skin; I call her my heart-baby. She acts as a sort of direct connect to both myself and the Goddess- which, I know, sounds manic. Hopefully my homeopath/psychologist and psychiatrist are right when they say it's just a symptom of my sensitivity and creativity, and not an illusion, delusion, or hallucination- as the DSM-IV puts it. Right. So although having a direct line to the Divine sounds all high and mighty and stuff, it's really just what people are talking about when they say you have the God and Goddess in you. It's more like a party line than anything else- you pick it up and half the world is gibbering away on their own lines! Only it's not confusing, just calming. Like waking up early in the morning but not really being awake, and just wrapping all your quilts and comforters and blankets and sheets around you and going back to sleep.

Of course, this all is a little confusing. I didn't even realize my reality was different from that of the people around me until just over a year ago. Then my geometry teacher sat me down and told me either I had to learn to live in all my realities, or just in one. I looked at her and started sobbing for the first time in years. Luckily, she had a little kid and was not grossed out by the overproduction of mucus in my nose. That scared me, though. I was not functioning well in any world- actually, I was a basket case- but I couldn't imagine giving up that part of me. So I asked for help. And I think I got it, too, in the form of accepting, sane psychotherapists, loving (if quite physically distant) friends, and a teacher who actually knows most of who I am and doesn't think I'm crazy! Acceptance was a catalyst for change, I suppose. Although I find it strange that people can't sense and see what I can, it's easier not to scare them. My mom wrote about the dancer Nijinsky's decline into madness, and how she'd seen that same denial of this world's reality happen to somebody close to her (me), but it hadn't ended in psychosis. I was gratified. Not everything is perfect- I was once diagnosed as psychotic, and that still terrifies me- but hey, I know who I am. And as long as I have writing, school, and Athena to back me up, I think I can get through anything! Hooray for Tessa!