Conforming In My Nonconformity

I’m just going to be honest here…oh wait…I always am!

Sometimes I’m actually TRYING to open a can of worms! And ironically, sometimes I hear the can opener operating when I feel it is a fairly benign statement. Here goes…I struggle with conformity. I know…no surprise there!

There’s more…I don’t care if I ever fit in. In fact I hope I don’t.

I’ve seen what it is I’m supposed to FIT IN and I am NEVER going to fit. Even if a large portion of my brain and heart were removed…I couldn’t stuff myself inside the lines the modern world has created and outlined and called “woman”. I’ve always been an ‘outside the lines’ sort of artist anyway. Apparently my life actually imitates my art.

But wait…there’s more. I also HATE labels.

I hate being ‘pegged’ and assigned as if I’m described as an A, B, C, D or E. I even hate being labeled as an ‘outlier’. I hate the “Bell-Curve”. I hate political labels and religious labels and size labels and talent labels and intelligence labels…I hate them all! I guess that’s pretty clear.

I am ‘kpjara’ and there are NO OTHER kpjaras out here. Okay, well there might be another USER named kpjara…but trust me when I say I’ve yet to meet my exact duplicate in thought and feeling. I do not have an identical twin.

I love that I am an original. I love that my ways are not your ways. We are our Father’s children after all. I love that in seeing that our ways are different we both have an opportunity to see and potentially learn a new way…at the very least we recognize there IS another way.

I won’t deny that we become more ‘user friendly’ when we’re ‘dumped’ into categories and potentially understood that way. I will also admit that some conformity is helpful in military life and even some school regime (imagine a non-conforming marching band…it’s a scary thought). I just want to let you know right now that that ‘exception’ rule we all struggled to learn in English class, i.e. ‘I before e except after c, the vowels are a, e, i, o, u and sometimes y’, etc. is actually the rule of life and understanding others.

If we’re completely honest with one another, we’ll admit we don’t want to feel like we are being described as Susie Sunshine, when we’re really Jennie Joker or Traditional Tammy or Leader Lou Lou or Chatty Chandra or Whispering Whitley. We are all as unique as our fingerprints.

What’s so magnificent in this truth is that in our unique-ness, we come together, and just like a puzzle we fit. We do not fit with every single piece we are put against, but when we are completed, we can and do, co-exist and make the world a more beautiful place as a mosaic.

In finding and embracing the ingeniously created and unique “YOU”…you begin the journey of becoming a part of that mosaic.

We truly are better together, than we are apart.

Have a well-blended Wednesday!