Sunday 26 December 2010

Beautifully Different

http://www.reverb10.com/the-prompts/


December 8 – Beautifully Different. Think about what makes you different and what you do that lights people up. Reflect on all the things that make you different – you’ll find they’re what make you beautiful.

Christ - what about me ISN'T different? I'm not sure how much of it makes me beautiful though! I've always been distinctively unusual, freakish, weird, odd, peculiar...take your pick.

I spent a lot of time when I was young, at school, trying to copy what other people were doing, work out how to just 'blend in'. It really didn't work though, because every now and then, I would just do something considered quite thoroughly odd, and my disguise would fall away, leaving me exposed to ridicule.

That's because kids are little shits though, and by the time I turned fourteen, I'd embraced my inner wierdo. There was a sense of 'might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb'. If people were always going to bust me as a freak, no matter how I tried to hide it, I might as well not bother to hide it and just really fucking go for it. It was a profound shift in thinking towards 'yes, that's right, I am. And your point is?'

And bizarrely, I find most people are drawn to it. It really does light me up - perhaps because I've accepted and welcomed who and what I am. I am so utterly, unashamedly odd, so brazen about my strangeness, that it seems to compel people to look closer. My hair, the way I speak, my singing voice, my dress sense, the strange little stories I tell, my approach to life, not to mention my sexual proclivities...sometimes complete strangers get so fascinated they start asking me the most outrageously personal questions, almost as if, by stepping outside what's considered normal, I've put myself in the public domain. Quite often people will just touch my hair and start looking at it, even if I've never exchanged a word with them!

Sometimes I do get a little sad that I can't just be normal - I'm not, and never will be, a 'joiner'. I will always be on the outside of any group activities, feeling resentful and irritated. And some people find my strangeness repellant, and a little frightening.

But mostly, if my differences don't make me beautiful, they make me what I am. And I value them for that.