Beautifully Different (Reverb10, Day 8)

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. (Author: Karen Walrond)

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Hey at least our prompts are lightening up, eh gang? Is anyone else noticing there is NO ROOM FOR SARCASM IN THIS CHALLENGE?? I’m gasping for air here, people.

Now that I’ve got that out, I think I can start. What makes me different is that I’m the catalyst for weird within my friend group. I reflected on this on Mother’s Day, when I shared that my strangeness is a direct result of growing up in a family where goofiness was currency. Until I was a teenager, I assumed everyone’s dad had an original song they sang to their mom (my dad’s being “Boooootiful Sheera (broken English for Beautiful Sheila), you’re so cuuuuuuuuute!”) when she was yelling at a gaggle of children not to eat an entire box of fruit snacks in one day.
Turns out, it was just my family.

It probably would have been easier not to make up nicknames, songs, words and ‘bits’ (Tali and I being the transgender lesbian moms of our adopted son, Joel, being the best and longest running) to keep myself occupied. Looking back, however, I can’t think of a time where my proclivity towards kook has resulted in negativity. I could just be oblivious but I prefer to think that most people are weird and afraid to own it. When they see people acting like fools, almost all appreciate the silliness and some take it as a much-needed invitation to let their freak flags fly.

Now, as an adult, originality is a spark for everything I do well – coaching, writing for my company as well as this blog, being a good friend, keeping my sanity in moments of high pressure and chaos. I’m so glad that as a kid my parents were never the ones hissing in the grocery store “Can you just act normal for once?!”

I think they knew they didn't have a leg to stand on.

Bootiful Sheera and John, Halloween 2010