Friday, July 25, 2008

Weird

I have been thinking. I think I am weird. I hope I am weird. I don’t want to be like everyone else, and I have definitely never felt like I fit right in with the crowd, well at least not the IN crowd. And while that bothered me when I was growing up, looking back, I have had a lot of fun creating, or at least helping to create, the weird crowd.

Truthfully, I am willing to bet that weird is normal, the majority of the people in the world are probably weird, but we look to the normal and strive to be the normal much more than we should. Today I feel like Embracing ME in all my Odd Duck Glory!

This is me, right now, really I just took this picture. It has been a long time since there was actually a picture of just me, basically because I am the one taking the pictures 99% of the time. My favorite subject is the baby. (P.S. the baby is also weird, but also really really really cute.) But today, my subject is me. I have never felt very photogenic and so many of the pictures of me somehow get deleted, but today, I am going to share this one with the world, that way there is a face to go along with my words. So here goes.

Why I love being weird.

When you are weird, you are allowed to have a personal style. You don’t have to buy what everyone else is buying, or wear what everyone else is wearing. You can be you. You can buy sundresses on clearance at Wal-Mart and wear them everyday if you feel like it, because you like them and you think you look cute.

When you are weird, you can be funny; in fact you can be hilarious. Not everyone will agree with me on this one, but hey that is why I am weird. So, back to the original thought. You don’t have to worry about impressing anyone. Why? Because they already think or know you are weird, and so you can be yourself, you can tell your stories and your jokes and you will discover in time that you are hilarious, that when your friends are in need of a pick me up, they seek you out. Why, because you are happy and there is a pretty good chance that after being with you, they will start to be happy too.

When you are weird, you can enjoy the little things. If you are trying to keep up with the Jones’s, you are probably going to miss out on the fact that they sky today is an amazing color of blue and the clouds are so perfectly fluffy and white that God had to have made them just to make you smile. Weird people are allowed to just sit on a park bench and watch the clouds go by. If you haven’t tried it, you should, it can be quite calming and enjoyable.

When you are weird, you can be imperfect. You can make mistakes. You can admit to fears, frailties and faults. You can do your best to change, and none of this has to be kept secret. That is the best part; you don’t have to pretend to be perfect. This is one of my favorite parts of being weird, and believe me it was also the hardest to embrace. But I don’t mind now if people know that I do dumb things sometimes. I fear failure so much that at times of my life, I couldn’t even begin to try new things. It made me so anxious that I quit school. And quitting made me feel embarrassed and I just wanted to hide. After all, everyone else in the world is perfect, right? Wrong. By embracing imperfection, trying your best to overcome the fears and faults and frailties that hold you back, and letting it be known, you allow others around you to be imperfect too. This leads me to my next and final thought.

When you are weird, you can believe. You can believe in God, you can believe in everyday miracles. You can believe that out there somewhere, in the vast expanse of space there is a Man so powerful that he can not only hear you when you talk to him, but through innumerable ways, he can talk to you, answer you, comfort and guide you. You can believe that along with that first Man, there is a second, His Son. You can believe that this Son of God lived a perfect life, so that you could be saved from your imperfections, and you can believe that it is truly possible that one day, with his help and through the power of his sacrifice for you, you can finally be completely comfortable as you. That, in my opinion, is perfection. After all God created you and as clichéd as it may be, it is still true, he doesn’t make mistakes. I want to be the person he created me to be, I really believe that someday I will be.

So I am weird, and I will stay weird, and I will love it.

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