Left of Centre

I am a huge nerd who doesn't have the appearance of nerd until you get to know me.  I think this quintessential nerdiness throws people off and leaves people confused and off balance.  My brother and I are the nerds of the family but he looks the part. I hired him once summer while he was completing his after Ed. degree and the clients he worked with (teenagers) immediately bullied him because of how he looked.   I wish he hadn't shown up with tape on his glasses and too short pants.  True story.  He ended up quitting the job three weeks later because he was throwing up in the bathroom before work due to nerves.

I however look 'normal', I dress well and have enough confidence that people have no idea how introverted I am.  I studied to be an actress and I think a small ability to put on a persona has helped me pass for average person at the first glance or two.  I don't think until recently I realized I'm a nerd which is far more comforting than socially unacceptable which I have feared from time to time.  I don't mean pariah more like people once they get to know me say "she's weirder than I thought".

What makes me weird?  My blogging for one.  Do you know how few people do this?  At least who talk about it? I'm the only one I know of who's ever blogged.  I had a blog that friends could read and honestly no one told me "hey I blog too".   I like the computer. I like spending copious amounts of time reading and researching, in fact I almost prefer it to going out.  I love business and leadership books. I like talking about human behaviour and other things that take us beyond surface conversations - I'm not great at surface.    While my East Coast upbringing makes me friendly I hold myself back from becoming friends with the people who would friend me.   Many people confuse my warmth and personality with the bonds of friendship and attach.  I hold back because I feel they've missed the point of who I really am.  They like the girl who makes others feel comfortable and who can make a room laugh, they don't realize that I'm doing my 'job', they don't realize I find more comfort from my room and my laptop.  They don't know that I've lived in one place for 12 years and have never said more than hi to a neighbour because I'm painfully shy.  I thought they wouldn't like the truth, so it's easier to leave them with the idea of who they think I am.  When I do find someone interesting I pursue them.  Not stalker like, but I've seen something in them that attracts me to them on a deeper level.  99% of the time we become friends, I have a pretty good radar for the people who I'll connect with.  I seek them, that I rarely see the 'type', shows me that I'm a bit odd.  I could have a million surface friends, I know I could be surrounded.  I choose not to because it doesn't fill me.  My sister is the exact opposite.  She's warm, friendly and has friends of many varieties, she can handle them, I could not.

My brain has a difficult time with resting on one thing, it jumps all over the place, which is terribly exciting from a creative point of view but really challenging when it comes to disciplined focus.  I am probably the most scatterbrained, accident prone, embarrassing moment person you'll meet.  I am so used to me I don't get embarrassed easily. I'm just me.  My friends, the few I have, think I'm hilarious with my stories and the things that happen when I'm with them.  (I am the chick that lost her passport on the plane into NY last year).  Yesterday going to the zoo with a girlfriend and her baby I typed street instead of avenue into Google Maps and ended up 20 minutes away from my destination.  I arrived 30 minutes late due to traffic.  Okay fine.  Then we go to Starbucks where I get two lattes and proceed to spill mine into her upholstered vehicle because I didn't want the lid on mine so I could eat the cream.  Later I was holding her baby who threw up copious amounts of breast milk on my t-shirt because I'd moved him from one position to another a little too quickly.  I got us wildly lost just leaving the parking lot to find the zoo.  I realized walking on the highway was probably not the plan of zoo developers, a little dangerous for families I guessed a little later.  That I rushed home to do pictures like the attached prove a little of my strangeness.  I wish I could show you the ones I did of the baby!  I KNOW people in general don't do this stuff.

Basically I have to accept I'm a bit of an outlier, rather than adjust to the round hole know that square pegs have benefits too.  Rather than knock myself for being just a bit too creative in a non-creative circle embrace it and celebrate the way I was wired.  This I'm writing because my relationship is on its very last legs, it's just the formality that needs to come.  I'm wracked with feelings of being unacceptable and different which are exacerbated by the loss of my bff recently.  When I search my heart I know that my motives are acceptable and fit with my own moral compass.  I can't really be different than who I am in the deepest part of me, and I'm happy with her.  That others may struggle with me is more a product of my 'uniqueness' and my inability to find like minded people where I am.  I think this is why I love this blog so much.  I wonder if bloggers in general are outliers?  I've met likeminded bloggers who I connect to and who's writing resonates with my understanding of the world.  Or if not my understanding have opened my mind to think in other ways.  Thank you Internet!

This post is more of a ramble than usual...I find my lack of planning a post very cathartic...hope you got the gist.  I am not saying I'm a special snowflake.  I'm trying to reconcile my place in the world.  Something I've been trying to do for a very long time.  I don't think it's me being bad, or super good, it's just me being a little bit left of centre.  And that's ok...or at least I hope I will be.