All. The. Weird.

I like weird. All the weird. The weirder the better. I have always liked weird. I only label it as weird because our society has ostensibly labeled it as weird. It’s only really ever been the things that make me feel more comfortable. The uncomfortable weirdness of being human. All the things that make us less “perfect” seeming, less polished, less filtered.

My comfort does not come from a sense of superiority, or even belonging. It comes from a place of appreciation. Something about the weirdness warms me. There is a beauty in it that I deeply appreciate. I love human frailty and failings. I love our secret strength and unwavering reliance. I love our fear and borderline pathetic desire for conformity despite an acknowledgment that we are so different than one another.  

I love seeing a toothy grin with a smudge of magenta lipstick across that smile or a poppy seed caught in an incisor. I love a chic woman who has forgotten to put on one earring or has one single black smudge on the back of her overpriced taupe heels. I love well-worn sneakers with bits of mud clinging to their fronts and smudged cellphone screens and eyeglasses that sit just slightly crooked on the nose.

I love sunscreen by the chin that hasn’t been fully rubbed in and a wayward freckle that sits in an odd spot, like the bend of a pinky or in the middle of an earlobe. I love slightly crooked teeth and oft neglected cuticles. I adore frizz around a part and long, floaty dresses that drag just slightly on the floor.

I like used books with mysterious inscriptions scrawled across their inner covers and state-shaped stains decorating random pages. I have an affinity for when people leave stork signs on their lawn too long, and honor student bumper stickers on their cars well beyond the appropriate time.

I like when you can smell a human on their pillowcase and also, on their collarbone and sometimes, on their palms. I like the sounds bodies make when they come together.

I like half grins and huge goofy smiles and also, furrowed brows. I like untied shoelaces and frayed collars and t-shirts that have a hem that is slightly uneven from overwear.

I love people that are wearing meticulously pressed suits but have spots of sweat by their brow line and mismatched dress socks and those things that people hang onto that you can tell are mostly nostalgic and don’t match anything else on their person. An old PBS tote bag that you get for free after you make a donation or a fuzzy disco ball keychain from Las Vegas with patches missing here and there.

I like when people laugh so hard that they snort or say the wrong thing, more than once. I enjoy awkward introductions and overly dramatic goodbyes and the quietest hellos.

I adore when people don’t know how to whisper but think they do.

I like people who sing unabashedly enthusiastic in their cars and louder in the shower, and aren’t super concerned with the actual lyrics.

I like when someone’s mouth is moving as another human is talking because they are preparing- their contribution, their rebuttal. I like people who gesticulate wildly when they speak and also, I like strange habits. Hair twirling and lip biting and beard pulling.

I love all these things and so much more. I love them because they are a reflection of our core- our gooey, warm, open, bubbling insides.

There are so many who give the impression of perfection. And we, as a society, place this perfection on a pedestal and worship it.

The clean lines, the expensive cut, the unblemished, unmarred, untouched fantasticness.

Look at how perfectly frothy her coffee is that she made from hand, or check out the way she expertly frosted her son’s birthday cake.

Look at her highly curated and mostly white living room. Look at his shiny watch and shinier teeth and glittering personality.

Look at how their car doesn’t have any lint or dust or crumbs.

Pay attention to their love. Their epic, fully connected, unchallenged love.

We look and we covet and we lose perspective. We forget all the deliciousness that is our weirdness. We forget how it shapes us into beings that resemble each other, relate to each other.

We prefer to sit in separate, barriered spaces of our own making. We feel safer endlessly trying instead of leaning into those things that could possibly connect us.

It’s so strange to me. And I see it everywhere. I see the hang ups and the bullshit. I see the dishonesty and the games and the offensive and lame phrases and taglines that have become such an uninteresting part of our language and culture and engagement.

So few of us allow ourselves the ease that comes with finding someone else who is a little weird and struggles, but tries. We prefer to keep up facades. We prefer to pretend to bring people in, but really, push them away. We are endlessly judging each other and falling short, and then, blaming our inadequacies for the ways in which we fail. We don’t want to change because then everything will actually change. We just want to cycle, nearly endlessly.

We don’t let ourselves be real or vulnerable. And I get it. The times when I have let down my guard and let people in, they’ve usually disappointed me. That’s when I’ve usually gotten some rote behavior or sentiment. I’ve often been rejected or shut down or disregarded.

And still, it doesn’t stop me. I still feel like I see things as an endless opportunity. A chance to find something, to find someone. I don’t like to give up, no matter how entrenched so many seem. Because, there is always the weird in the mix. If you look closely, there are always those who are just sitting in their weirdness. Wearing like a protective cloak.

And when I’m really hurt or disappointed, I take a beat, and then, I start over again. And again. And again.

And…again.

X

L.