This morning I was listening to Ryan Seacrest’s Top Forty on the radio as I was driving. I like the interviews with the artists interspersed between the songs on the countdown. I was negotiating my parking spot at The Christmas Tree Shop and caught the last sentence of someone’s interview. I didn’t get the name of the artist because I was concentrating on parking, but as I settled into my parking space the sentence I heard was:
“Nobody is going to give me, me, better than me.”
As I locked the car and walked across the parking lot, that sentence resonated in my brain and made me smile. I loved the confidence I heard in that artist’s voice as he articulated his thoughts on writing his own music. I felt the feeling slide through me that it really is okay to be me. I spent a good part my life trying to be like everyone else. This never went over well for me because it just showcased to how different from from the norm I always was. I hated that I was different and the fact that the harder I tried to package and conform myself, the more different I appeared. Most of my school years went down that way.
When I reached college, it was quickly pointed out by others who didn’t know me all my life, that I was different. They weren’t critical though. I was actually given accolades for being the different one in the dorm and on campus. The quote the young artist made today drew me back to those years and the people who appreciated my uniqueness because they totally changed the way I viewed and accepted myself. If not for them, I don’t think I could’ve marched out into the field of education with the kind of confidence it takes to do that job effectively. They set me up for living the way I lived the rest of my life. I was always different as a teacher, a wife, and a mother. In turn, my adult daughters are both confident professionals and do not compromise their beliefs in their personal lives.
I hope the words of that artist struck another young person listening to that show today and inspired the same feeling in them that it did in me. Retirement has prompted those early feelings to resurface as I moved into the uncharted territory of becoming a writer. Once again I started out thinking I was supposed to approach the writing process like everyone else in this new world I’m in. And, once again, I found out through others that have not known me all my life that it’s okay to be different. Though we all compare war stories in the writing world and learn from each other, the one thing we do celebrate is our differences. I found out that in the artist’s world, different is good. It’s okay that I love red or purple streaks in my hair, pop music and pop culture, bright colors against black, yoga clothes, funky boots, a comfy gray hoodie and my iPhone. It’s fine that hot yoga rocks my boat and keeps me sane in such an upended world. It’s necessary and good that I write and communicate what is born somewhere down deep so that it may emerge and maybe enhance the life of another. It’s okay that learning now resides in spiritual journeying rather than in a classroom and faith in God is paramount to walking that road. This brief snapshot of me shows me that nobody is going to give me, me better than me.
What would a teeny snapshot of you look like? Feel free to comment and tell me below. Together we make an awesome album.
And so, as another day goes by, no matter what stage you are in in your life, nobody is going to give you, you, better than you, you are a gift to your world, so take delight in being the beautiful, unique soul you are, and….I have written.
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