Different Is Good

      My morning walk is my time of contemplation, I think about a lot of things. This morning my mind was turned towards my adolescence, not always a pleasant experience.
       I was out before the game started, my father chose a name for me when I was born, Juanita. Have you ever seen any of those name tags with Juanita on them. You get my point, I hated my name, it was different. I wanted to be Mary or Ann or even Maryann, anything that was, "normal", like everybody else. 
      Then came the joy of school, let's just say my tomboy ways never helped me fit in with the girls at school. I still cared, but not as much. I could not stand that girly thing of girls screaming because they can't possibly jump up and hit that ball coming over the net (during good old phys ed and volleyball). Dear old middle school, one girl in particular liked to torture me, she would sit in back of me in class and deliberately knock my bag off the back of my chair. But if there's one thing I've learned, it's that sometimes the people who are the meanest to you are also the unhappiest, a lesson that has served me well in adulthood.
       High school was more tolerable, ours served five towns. I became acquainted with the outcasts from other towns. Yes, we formed our own group. High school is probably the worst because you have now passed puberty, which is a rite in itself, especially when you take into account that your mother never told you about such things as menstruation and you thought you were bleeding to death when the big day finally arrived. That's another story.
       I had alot of interests as a teenager, boys being among them, but not the priority. I hated homework, but loved music. So every day after school I had better things to do with my time than  homework, I shut myself in my room, listened to music and read books. I loved to read, Herman Hesse, Richard Brautigan, Walt Whitman, these were a few of my favorites. I staged my own little revolution, I threw out my bed frame and slept on a mattress on the floor. I had everything I needed, music and books. I reveled in being different at school now, who cared anymore. I had a small circle of friends who were different, like me. I also decided to stop combing my hair, which was bad because my hair was thick,  my mother couldn't take that one so I eventually caved and combed. I also fell in love with the smell of patchouli. There were two girls who went to my school, they were from New York. As they walked past me in the hallway the scent of patchouli wafted to my nostrils, I was in love with that strange scent. Later on while living in Brooklyn, New York I would buy a bottle of pure patchouli oil in Greenwich Village. I don't know that I wore it as much as I just liked to open that bottle and smell it. I still have that bottle, holding it in my hands brings back fond memories of New York City.
       By the time I reached senior status in high school I really didn't care that I was different anymore. I found out there's a whole world out there with people who are different, different is interesting. After high school I went to live and work on an island. It was fabulous, there were alot of artists and musicians there. Every night after work I would go to parties, they weren't your ordinary parties, they were different, it wasn't about getting wasted, it was all about music. I had learned how to play the guitar in high school, encouraged by my father, who also played and had his own band. Just like my father I loved music, I still do.
       Being different is good. I march to the beat of my own drum. If there's one thing I have learned in life it is best to be yourself. As this quote says,  “Be who you are and say what you feel because people who mind don’t matter and people who matter don’t mind.”