Sunday Scribblings: Eccentric

As a child it's called being precocious. Later it's excused as teenage rebellion. In our twenties it's youthful exuberance. during our middle years we might allow ourselves to be thought of as a little odd. It's only as we become older that those personality quirks we carry with us are allowed to flourish into full-blown eccentricity. Why is it that we feel we need to wait until we are old to permit those quirks that truly define us to reveal themselves?

It's taken a long time, many years of trying to find somewhere to fit in, trying to find people who were in some way 'like me'. My generation grew up with sitcoms like Friends, and we were sold the idea that we gravitated around our tribes more than our families. If you couldn't find a place to fit in, then there was something wrong with you. There is something wrong with you.

Perhaps it's this city, with its craziness, fusion of government and culture, urbanity and wilderness. Perhaps it's easier to be an individual here, the rules less defined. At some point I think I stopped trying to tone down the dialogue, stopped trying to knock off the rough edges. Here at times I embrace bluntness, refuse social nicety. I'm not yet wearing purple, but I'm sure as heck embracing rose-toned pink. Strangely, people seem to like me anyway.

My mother's generation, and her mother's before here, spent their lives striving to be normal, only relinquishing the veneer as twilight crept in to tap them on their shoulder. I am encouraged by signs that my generation of stroppy women seems to be less afraid of consignment to the asylum. I think I may possibly be odd. If I try hard enough I may one day be able to achieve mad cat woman status. Bring on the eccentricities.

More eccentric types here.