I can not say I've ever been something I'd consider "normal". Yes I put it in quotation marks because it's really a relative term, my normal and your normal can be two different things and that's all right. But for the sake of this entry I'll use that term from time to time, unless I forget to.
I was driving today and saw a couple different people walking down the street in different locations and thought about how odd they were, then I realized that was not a bad thing. I'm glad to see odd people. One thing I love about India is that all of the people are so different than we are and don't really make any bones about being different from one another, even though they also seem to try to fit in. Yes, India is like that, always a dichotomy of itself. That's a big reason I love it so much.
It seems since I was very young that most people try to fit in, whatever that means. That's another relative term. Fitting into whatever group you're trying to be close with I would imagine. But I always had friends in each little group, some stoners, some popular kids, some band geeks, some of everything. Not that I had a lot of friends, but I had a lot of acquaintances. So I never really knew where I fit in. So I didn't try very hard.
I've always been very nervous about sticking out in a crowd, I think that's my mom in my. She likes you to blend in, but maybe that was my perspective at the time. She always encouraged me to be outgoing and do what I wanted.
I was a very, painfully shy kid, and so going to the extreme opposite of that was the only thing I could do to not be only sitting at home. I had to do the thing that scared the shit out of me otherwise I'd be stuck in a place I didn't want to be. And even with that from time to time I'd find myself sucking all of it back inside anyway and not expressing myself, for years at a time sometimes, only to find that I'd have it manifest in my body in the form of back problems or something having pain, or being sick. Once I moved through that then I would find that it went away.
The biggest regression I ever had was in my 20's. I began drinking and doing drugs at 18, lots of both, but having a lot of fun. But in my 20's after having a wild and crazy time in my late teens I completely went the opposite way. I got all caught up in my head and stayed there for some years. I would get out and go party, and getting wasted was about the only way I could let those walls down, but other than that I'd stay at home and not do too much. In my teens doing the drugs I realized that I was using it to escape and so finally quit after a good hard couple years of it. But I never realized the drinking was the same thing to me, mostly because everyone I knew did it. About the only thing anyone I knew did was to go out and get drunk on the weekends, so I did too. Not realizing until many, many years later that I was using it in the same way I'd used the drugs.
But all in all I mostly found myself expressing myself in many different ways, some of it being used as an escape so I felt more free, but most of it being very beneficial to me becoming who I am now, and I like myself.
In 1988-89 I did drag, only for about 9 months to a year but and when I was in drag I was very often on acid as well, but let me tell you I had a good time. I've recently seen some pics of myself and I always seem to have a sourpuss look on my face, but at the time I was ecstatic, I guess it just didn't show outwardly. I was expressing myself as much as I could doing the drag, having emotions show up as well, well that was just asking too much! ahahaha!!!
After that I started studying wicca, it was popular at the time in certain circles and made a lot of sense to me since I loved being out in nature so much. To worship nature just made sense. To see the god or the goddess in each thing and at different times of the year came easy to me, and was most likely the precursor to my current explorations with Sanatana Dharma (more popularly known as Hinduism). That last until I came crashing down at around 22. It seemed as I was living on my own I blossomed more, and when I would make my way to living back home or in the area that was known as home at the time I became more reserved and tame.
Just a couple examples of how I stepped into different aspects of myself in my youth. There were many incarnations of me and still many more to come I would assume, but now I'm probably the most happy and have the least amount of stuff I've ever had. I'm going to India regularly, which inspires me to allow more and more of the real me out, I teach yoga for a living and love it, I actually live a very disciplined life now with the yoga and the times I go to bed and get up, the rituals I use in my daily life, the way I eat, the type of things I'll use on my skin even. But I feel more free than ever, and less "normal" than ever.
Nowadays it would seem that normal is less in style than it ever was anyway, which makes me excited. Even though I still see a lot of stifling of our true selves out there, its more vogue to let it out now than ever before and I embrace that. In fact I'll go so far as to say I think its the discipline of the yoga and the awareness I try to bring to everything in my life that allows me to be more free, and I hope that those I teach the method to also can feel that coming forth from themselves more as well.
So, as I named the article, is your freak flag flying? If not, why not? What more can you do to let loose of the bounds of your inner being so more of the real you comes forth? How can I help you, if at all? How can anyone help you? Can you in fact, help yourself? Are you worried about what others will think? I was, but I don't let that stop me anyway. I have lots of fear, but still go ahead and do the thing. Can you care less about what others think? It's okay to do so. You can love and care about people and still not allow their opinions to control you. Will you start today allowing your inner freak to fly?
As RuPaul says "if they ain't paying your bills, pay them bitches no mind!" Great advice from a very tall drag queen in his mid 50's who happens to be the most gorgeous woman many of us have ever seen. Take that advice and run with it!
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