Be your weird self

I was talking with some friends recently and one said out loud before she could catch herself, “you’re so weird”. Even my children tell me I’m weird. I don’t mind.

I feel like people might think I’m weird because I have a mother-in-law that I rent out instead of reserving the space as a guest room for when family comes to visit. I’m weird because I sketch in church while I listen to the speakers. I’m weird because I buy raw milk for my family, for which someone recently asked me, “is that even legal?”. I’m weird because I don’t watch the news or keep up on the President’s tweets. I don’t watch TV in the evenings. I don’t know popular culture.

But I know this: I have found myself and am being true to myself. I was lost in a society that values consuming over creating. We grow weary of the things we own too quickly and “need” to replace them. We’re rarely happy with the house we live in, but are always looking to upgrade into something bigger. 

I have discovered what really matters to me, and it’s not a bigger house or more, newer stuff. It is learning and growing and creating and building and helping my children understand that they need to listen to their own heart about what is important to them instead of deciding what is important to them by the commercials they see on TV. 

And I have found that when I am myself, I give other people permission to be themselves. A few years after I started renting out my downstairs apartment, my sister started renting out a room in her house. When I started sketching in church, which surprisingly took courage to do, I saw others start doing it too.

So be your weird self. Be you. You won’t regret it.