A little different

What if you let go of validation?

I don’t ever remember a time of really fitting in. The interwoven ubuntu, of the warm embrace; there isn’t an adjustment I haven’t tried and now it’s just tiring, boring and time wasting. Those turquoise corduroy jeans I snuck from my best outfit closet to ride into town, only to be told how much I looked like a boy; it wasn’t I never tried, I just never made it to home base, impressed enough to be seen and accepted in the raw. If only I’d learned this lesson before starting school, would I still be me?

There were brief interludes in the unbecoming of a dull normal life story, as if the generations before me had prosed one lengthy movie, allowing only brief moments for popcorn with like minded friends, to laugh long enough I’d hold on to the monkey bars a little longer, despite being further to fall than everyone else. I was fueled by fortitude, fall down, get up, try again. If my memory serves me well today, I think it was my father’s voice I recall when my horse chose a refusal at the poorly disguised brush jump and with his stentorian voice I heard ‘get back on, hurry up, the clock is ticking’, so I did. One time I painted for 4 days and 3 nights and couldn’t remember if I’d eaten or slept. Moments, just long enough I could breathe a little longer. To let go, step into my wild and free, was to turn away from acceptance, validation, being enough. So I did.

That clock has never stopped ticking, for how long is a mystery we either embrace or avoid the unwritten.

I found a school report while tidying paperwork after my father had passed, I wonder why he kept them all among his trinkets and collectibles others thought should be thrown to the tip; ‘if only she would talk less and focus more’ seemed to be the consistent theme, among books I gazed upon for hours. Of all the men I’d known, my Dad has the most interesting of conversationalists, often elevating as if we were defence and prosecution in the trial of our lives, I never thought I was like him, until the nurse wiped the ice around my lips in the emergency room and I was shunted to a memory of his last few moments, not on your ‘f***ing life’ I thought and made for the exit as quick as I could arrange; I stopped treatment long enough to pretend I was normal, not my father’s daughter and never different. If I was to live, it was going to be on my terms.

I tried normalcy on for size, the job, the family, parenting, even boring conversations empty of substance or meaning about nothing more than sentences you can read on an influencers blog. Boring intimacy so predictable I could set my watch, wasn’t anyone brave enough to be vulnerable anymore I thought, I’m a simple female body not a puzzle flat on a surface in a waiting room. Ah it was still there, the curiosity, bubbling away as I held it down with both hands, even standing there in my rainbow tights, chicken covered slip ons amazed by natures palette in the garden, I couldn’t fight it any longer. I let go again.

I’m not sure how it started, maybe the genes are to blame, I mean after all as a woman I have twice the ‘X’ factor, the genetic microRNA’s, tough little buggers that adapted to silence other genes, ‘sssh we’re evolving here’, with 10% of the RNA’s occurring in the X chromosomes, as a girl baby I carried two, while my male relatives only 1, along with the Y (which right now in the US, there is a lot of ‘why’ going on’), is any wonder 95% of the super duper centenarian’s (over 110 yrs old) have all been women.

Were you aware if the mother’s X is not quite up to par, the male X steps up to ensure the new baby girl is mighty and feisty as much as history can provide. So maybe it was in the genes all this time. As a behaviourist it rubs up my Skinner and Thorndike appreciation the wrong way, yet maybe I should be more curious about that, what if being different is in my DNA and not a battle outside, a surrender within.

For the little different. We don’t fit neatly into rules or expectations, often whined about, subject of complaints when our delivery is too honest or short; legends are made from the seeds of different. Today pills are made instead.

I keep my circle small, I still talk far too much, although to less people, more to my Bluey, trees, random strangers on hiking tracks, supermarket isles, I can literally strike a conversation on a park bench or dinner table with elected officials (guess which one is most interesting). I love the non-judgement in the whisper of the trees and ability to listen until I finish my sentence, how the Bluey keeps returning time and time again, until I am finished playing. Humans are not so consistent.

My writers attic is so full of messages to myself via Siri, notebooks, cut outs, photos and inspiring reads, the need for two lifetimes to explore them all is unquestionable.

You can talk about me, question my motives, tell stories that resemble fiction without my name to reassure yourself I am accountable for your choices, call me a trouble maker, whatever keeps your ego afloat. I am different, I have no time for your ignorance or apathy, lies or cheating through a life so rich with questions, we thrive on searching for answers inside us all along. How wasted is energy exerted without curiosity and adventure.

You take the easy road, I’m weary of existing for your needs or theirs.

I can’t argue anymore with my father over trivial news or indifference, I can take the Venom or Viper and be curious about all the difference he accepted as truth, ride into the next adventure, genes intact, dopamine and motorcycles, epigenetic and novelty seeking; epistemic curiosity over run by perceptual like the 2nd X chromosome preparing me for the road ahead.