Beautifully Different

The Prompt:

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.  (Author:  Karen Walrond)

(I find that there is something more than a bit cosmically humorous about the fact that I spent yesterday’s prompt saying things about myself that can be considered less than complimentary and today, I’m called upon to do the opposite.  Instead of calling attention to my flaws, I’ve got to sing my own praises.  I’d like to meet the person that pulls this off with ease.  He or she holds the key to something, I’m sure.)

Look, I don’t know what about me lights people up.  You’d have to ask them.  I’m terrible at accepting compliments, and that has a lot to do with the fact that I never fully believe in the nice thing being said.  I don’t labor under any delusions.  I am not exceptionally pretty.  I’m not an athlete or an artist.   I don’t sing or dance or play an instrument and I can’t really think of anything I do with any special aplomb.  Truth be told, I’m more than slightly odd and awkward and look at it as rather a miracle that I’ve made it this far with friends in tow.

What I can tell you, is that I am a hostess at heart and feel a genuine responsibility for everyone else’s good time.  My friends have in me a girl that will go to extreme lengths to make them laugh.  We all spend enough time (at least I do), alone and miserable with our thoughts, and it is for sure a lovely thing to be able to sit quietly with a friend not talking about anything at all; but to me, there’s nothing as beautiful as a moment lost in frenetic, face-screwed-up, doubled-over, can’t-breathe, god-my-cheeks-hurt, laughter with friends.

Taking this further; to trick a smile out of someone who has accepted me without judging, to get a chortle or even a rueful grin from the mouth of someone I love who’s having a hard time is the currency I’m paid in.  I count any day as a win that I’ve been able to get someone to laugh by doing or saying something outrageous that completely disregards my innate need to blend in in order not to call attention to my strangeness.

An Anecdote:

It was a random evening in Seattle, neither warm nor cold, but at least it wasn’t raining.  My friend D and I had massacred a fortune’s worth of veal shank to make the worst saltimbocca I’d ever tasted.  Maybe it was the wine, or perhaps the champagne, but the result really matter because we’d had a fantastic time laughing in the kitchen while the boys sat in the living room watching some important game of sportsball.  After barely choking down what should have been a delicious and high-end meal (but assuredly WASN’T) we put on our heels and hoofed it to the bar.     As is the case with sparkly, friend-filled nights, we did any number of shots and found ourselves in a rather shabby state.

I was in the middle of a sentence on the way home when D ducked behind a tree (one of those urban trees planted in the dead center of a square of concrete) and ejected the contents of her stomach.  She stood upright at the end, and looked at me with tears standing in her eyes:  “I’m so embarrassed!” she wailed: “We were having such a good time and now EVERYONE saw me puke!”  I looked around and pointed out to her that we were the only ones on the street, that if anyone saw, it was only an old lady peering out the window of her high-rise and who cares about that old bitch anyway?  It didn’t matter.  D was crushed, inconsolable.  I gave her a little chuckle, and shaking my head, asked:  “Would it help if I puked too?”  She looked at me in amazement, and nodded her head, squeaking out a tiny “yes”.  So I did it.  I tottered over to her pile of chunky, half-used stomach contents and I third-knuckled it, leaving an almost identical mass of sewage next to hers.  “Solidarity sister!” I said, and took the crook of her arm in mine and stumble-lead us both back to her townhouse.

I’ve puked for friends and worn fairy wings, dressed up for no apparent reason and arranged for impromptu 30^th birthday lap dances.  I’ve convinced a drunk barfly that my father wrote the song “More than Words” and paid for my college tuition with the royalties.  I’ve had a hand in stealing life-sized, plastic Star-Trek characters from displays in grocery stores and agreed to double dates.  I’ve flung myself to the ground to make snow angels and have developed an almost choreographed montage of old 80s dances that I’ll pull out during a lull in conversation (Shopping Cart anyone?).  Making people snort with laughter is something that I CAN do.  It’s at least one thing that I can give.  It’s a small way that I pay it forward to the world around me.

Community

Prompt:

Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise in 2010?  (author: Cali Harris)

This prompt stirred in me quite a rueful feeling.  Community, itself, is quite a beautiful idea; groups of people, bound together by common goals or ideas, hobbies or interests, jobs or social backgrounds.  It evokes a feeling of fellowship and belonging; a smaller network of support in an otherwise unforgiving whole.  It is commeraderie and help—both joys in terms of my rather Marxist ideals.

As I pieced together my personal definition of community, it became more and more clear to me that though I’d previously contributed to any number of groups that fit this bill, I’d only very few times felt as if I actually BELONGED to any of them.  From the time I was a little girl, I’d always felt my “otherness”; a nagging idea that no matter how hard I tried, I would always be JUST THAT MUCH different than everyone else participating.  Different than social anxiety or paranoia and their ilk, this feeling was more just a knowing that while everyone may be smiling to my face, behind those smiles, they just found me ODD; too odd to fit in, too odd to accept completely, to odd to continue inviting without the buffer of the person who’d originally introduced me.

Over the years I would develop ways to cope with this, and I’ve found that I’ve come full circle.  As a child in elementary and grade school, I’d just let the odd out, not quite understanding that the jeers I was receiving were the result of my own actions and words.  I was only just learning that in order to be a part of my school community, I’d have to hide the different way that I looked at and related to the world.  In high school, I’d learned that lesson, and went the road of assimilation, hiding those things TOO well, denying MYSELF in favor of the most popular friends and parties.  In college, I changed again and was struck with a hellish cognitive dissonance, trying desperately to find a middle ground between the two.

It’s only recently, in adulthood, that I’ve reverted back to letting my crazy out of the closet.  Being someone else for so many years took its toll on me, and all the old coping mechanisms began to fall apart.  As a result, I said “To hell with it” and decided that a true self is the best self.  Do not mistake me; this choice did not lead me down a road of blissful social ease.  The only difference now is that instead of children, they are adults who look at me askance, trying to no avail to understand my processes and the jerky way I fail to blend into my surroundings.  “She’s nice enough, and fun” they say, “but sometimes, I just don’t know…she’s just, strange.”

Though used to the sidelong glances and the constant feeling that I’m being judged for my peculiarity, I’ve never become completely accustomed to the feeling of loneliness that it breeds.  I stick up for myself, and I speak my mind in my own queer way.  I embrace my oddity and prefer to define my personality as distinctive, but there is still the longing that overwhelms me sometimes to fit my square peg in everyone else’s round hole.  This conflict is part and parcel of living in my skin.

I’ve encountered many communities in 2010 (not the least of which is Reverb10).  All of them have lent something fulfilling and given me scores of knowledge and new understanding.  From the knitters at my local craft store who helped me with my first “not a scarf” project to a couple on whose porch I sat a couple times this summer enjoying glasses of wine and countless cigarettes, I’ve injected myself into different scenes hoping for a fit; for a place to be entirely myself without needing someone to ‘explain’ that “That’s just how she is.”  The fact remains, however, that I have yet to encounter a community in which I belong completely–sans judgemental smirks and curious looks, or even just the niggling feeling that “there is something strange about that girl….”

So I envy you out there belonging to your gay community, your writers’ community, your young, city-living community and your new parents’ community.  I envy the ease at which you all participate together and support each other and present a united front towards those not-in-the-know.  It looks warm on the inside and cozy, and maybe someday, I’ll feel comfortable past the front vestibule.  For now though, I’m my own…a community of one.