understanding. it's good.

I was talking to a friend yesterday about creative types. I would venture to put myself in this category. I do because of the reactions I often get from other people at my ways. I remember having an email conversation with my mother not too long ago. We were talking about my wayward nature, and the things in life I am drawn to. With the exception of my outgoing...um...ness, which I get from my mother, the rest of my personality falls much more in line with that of my father. Because of this, the both of us have received many pairs of rolled eyes and looks of confusion from our home's matriarch. It wasn't that I had a hunch that my mom thought I was weird. She would actually say, "you're weird".

The more a grew into adult-ish-ness, and the more I got used to myself, this weirdness wasn't a liability, like I sort of thought it was at one time. I think at one point in my life, sadness came from an attempt at suppressing it. Insecurity is crippling, and breeds discontentment with oneself. At that stage, the natural reaction to such a false state of mind would be to conceal..."be less of this, Meredith, or less of that...you're too much...figure things out...laugh less loud...shhhhhh"...etc. Embracing the weirdness makes for a much happier person. Funny thing is that when someone becomes more at peace with the way they are, and stops fighting to be what they aren't, people often enjoy being around them, naturally. It's a much better way to live.

Because of my comfortability with the weirdness, it was the right time to have a conversation about it with my non-doting mother. Had our talk about it happened before, I would have left it hurt and offended, and probably would have felt misunderstood and attacked. I am making such audacious assumptions because that's the way most of my conversations with my mother went for a very long time.

I was in Korea parading myself around as a substitute english teacher for a few months, and I think she may have been wondering what I was going to do when I returned. I was attempting to explain myself, and used the phrase, "I know you think I am weird, mom, but"...

And then she said one of the nicest things she has ever said to me. It was so nice because, despite my comfortability with the weirdness, I was still maybe a little hurt deep down somewhere at my mother's lack of desire to understand me, and the feeling that she was able to wrap my complex personality up in such a rather incomplete nutshell perspective. She said, "I don't think you're weird, sis. I just think you're...Creative."