Be Yourself

Hey, they've been telling this to me since I was in kindergarten. I forget sometimes. I keep on trying to be them, and I keep on failing at it. I've got a favorite question, "Are you who you want to be?" Do you remember high school and cliques? What clique did you fit into to? Were you a plastic? Were you a diva? Were you a brain? Were you a jock? Mall rat? Were you an outsider?

We all know in a heartbeat who we were. This is some important info! I was an outsider. I used to hate this, but now I realize I was a rare bird. The saying goes, "birds of a feather flock together." If you are rare, the flocks are few and far between. You will often have to flock with other kinds of birds. They do not understand you. You know you are a different kind of bird.

I remember watching flocks of snow geese as a girl. There would be thousands of snow geese in the flock. They were so loud; it sounded like the fans at a professional baseball game, winning the World Series. I'd sit with my binoculars and watch birds that did not fit. You know the weird ones. The ones that weren't snow geese. You couldn't hear them. You could have only heard them, if they had been alone.

So here it is, from my first teacher -

"Molly, be yourself," said Mrs. Crabtree. "But be still."
"I will try," I said.