Being Normal is Vastly Overrated
Musings on embracing your inner weirdo
When I was in first grade I tried to convince my entire class I was a witch which if you know me, should not be surprising. I was just a little weird.
No, sorry, strike that.
Am a little weird.
But this thing happened as I grew up — I stopped embracing my weird. I started to get self-conscious about the parts of me that didn’t seem to fit with everyone else. I saw how the kids who were “different” were treated and I was desperate to avoid that same fate. So I started to hide who I was so that I could fit in. I tried so hard.
Of course now, as an adult, I see the “differences” they were mocked for really just meant “utterly themselves” as if they had no idea you were supposed to pretend to be anyone else. As if hiding the true parts of themselves weren’t even an option.
For me, it was the only option. I had learned what it was like to be the laughing stock, the one the kids made fun of, and I would be damned if that ever happened again. So I took those parts of me that made me “me” and tried to curb them and shape them & cut the crust off of them to become something more cookie-cutter; something more “normal.”
Slowly, I lost bits of myself with each “conforming” year. I shaved pieces of my personality to fit what I thought other people liked and wanted. I’ve never actually dated a guy who knew me — the full, real, weird me — because weird gets made fun of. Weird gets turned away. Weird isn’t loved.
No one wants to date the weird girl.
But here’s the rub: that’s not true.
Weird gets noticed. Weird gets accepted. Weird is what brings people together. I realized the real, weird me — the one that my true friends know & love & see — is the me that I should be presenting to the world because that’s the one with everything (and more) to offer.
Normal is boring.
Normal is, as our Queen Debbie Reynolds says in the hit Disney Channel Original Movie Halloweentown, vastly overrated.
So why strive for normal when we can be so much more?
Every single movie where the main character is forced to conform in some way always leads to mishaps & mistakes. It’s not until they reclaim their true self that they thrive and prosper (i.e. She’s All That, Miss Congeniality, Legally Blonde, The Princess Diaries, etc.). It’s not until they see the value in their true, honest, weird self that they can succeed. It’s almost as if their weirdness is their superpower; the key to unlocking everything.
Here’s the truth: main characters are weird.
They should be weird. No one wants to watch a movie or a tv show about a perfectly normal, conforming person. We want the characters with secrets or odd hobbies or weird quirks. We like the mess. We live for the oddest parts of characters. So why do we hide them in ourselves?
We should be weird. We should be embracing all of the things that make us weird instead of hiding them. Weird isn’t a bad thing. Weird is just another word for unique. All of the things that make us individually ourselves are what we should embrace because they’re rare. And rare things? They’re the most coveted, aren’t they?
I’m so tired of hiding my weird. So I’m done. I’m letting my weird out.
Who’s with me?
xx
Jenn