Throughout my childhood, I always wore a knitted beanie over my head. It was always the same one, too—a navy blue beanie with yellow stripes. My mother made it herself not long after I was born. “To make you a little more human,” my mother often told me, pulling the beanie snugly over my head before planting a kiss on my forehead.

I don’t blame her. In fact, I silently thanked my mother for her knitted gift. If I were to reveal my monstrosity of a head to the world, everyone would stare at me, and life would be a living hell for both of us. The questions would never stop. “Did the nurses make a mistake at the hospital?” Someone would ask. “Oh dear—did the doctor do something to your baby as you waited in recovery?” Another person would inquire. My favorite question I often imagined being asked was: “My goodness! Is your child the mutated offspring of an unknown alien species?”

Yep. I looked more like a martian visiting from Mars rather than a human child with a physical oddity. If one were to catch a glimpse of what emerged from my head, I’m sure they would release the news of my deformity to the world, sounding the alarm for an army of conspirators and alien fanatics who would want nothing more than to lay me out on a table, dissect me, and speculate my origin. Thus, my beanie never left my head when I went out in public.

But I didn’t think I looked that bad. I mean, when the beanie was off, I looked more like a humanoid bumblebee than anything else. Two antennas—similar to what you’d find on bumblebees, which are used to help them touch, taste, and smell—protruded from my blonde hair. They would twitch and flick—never holding still as they tried to touch, taste, and smell anything they could come in contact with.

When I was really young—probably five or six years old—my antennas were susceptible. I wasn’t used to all the different textures, tastes, and smells that overwhelmed my normal human senses. I couldn’t walk into the kitchen where my mother baked my favorite honey cake without my antennas twitching and trembling. The tastes and smells of the tantalizing aroma that hung in the air would send me into a frenzy that I couldn’t snap out of until I was carried out of the room by my panicked mother. I’m sure it seemed as though I was having a seizure, though we both knew that wasn’t the problem.

But over time, I adjusted to my extreme sixth sense. I could detect when a rainstorm was coming hours before it arrived. I could smell the comforting scent of coffee long before the cafe across town opened in the morning. I could tell you what the sounds you hear at a concert feel like due to the intense vibrations in the air.

Even though I hide my sixth sense from the world behind a carefully knitted disguise, I know I’m one of the special ones. As my mother used to whisper to me after a long day: “Stay strong, my little bumblebee. Listen to your sixth sense.”