Speshl

My mother and I were painting my new bedroom last weekend and just shooting the shit. I’m not sure exactly what we were talking about but it had something to do with my life in general and how I’d turned out and the choices I had made. Like you do. And about how my mom used to assure me when I was a teenager that of course my skin was going to clear up and of course all the things that normal women did, I was going to do too, except that none of that has really happened. And then my mother said this: “Well I’ll say one thing about you, dear.” My hair started to rise because statements prefaced by this are usually unintentionally insulting as only your mother can be. But what followed was, “Nothing about you turned out normal.”

It may be the nicest thing my mother has ever said to me. I don’t know that it’s necessarily true, but it made me happy.

I think she was afraid that maybe it came out wrong and it might have hurt me, so she started qualifying it with benign, inoffensive examples, including the statement, “you certainly are unique.” But all of that was unnecessary, and I told her so and thanked her. And when I think about it, the people I like most in my life are the ones who have taken the road less traveled. Whose uniqueness is utterly effortless, unaffected. It is simply the Way They Are. They aren’t trying to be special snowflakes or stand out, they just do what they like, and what they like happens to be, well, different. They also tend to be highly intelligent and usually have a dry wit. It all seems to go hand in hand. And let me assure you, finding people like that who are also mentally healthy and relatively emo-free? Much harder than you’d think. So you gotta hang on to the good ones you find.

I guess it’s impossible to ever really know how you’re perceived by others. I mean, people can give you hints or come right out and hurt or flatter, but you’ll never really know the instant feeling or emotion someone has about you when you pop into his or her head. That feeling that can’t really be articulated or defined. The overall impression you make. I hope the saying that you’re defined by the company you keep is true. Cause I keep me some pretty sweet company.