Mitzi’s Happy

I’ve been calling on my newly found cicada spirit animal guide to put my future plans into perspective. I feel like I have been underground for 17 years and now that I’m coming back to the surface I do have this shell of an old me that I’m shedding because it no longer serves its purpose.

I wonder if when I leave that shell behind, if someone will pick it up and show it around like I did with cicadas growing up, shrieking because they think it’s grotesque. It kind of makes me smile to think of how people can do that, delight in the shell of something left behind.

But this transformation happens, and it’s time to emerge, singing or screaming depending on who’s listening. And this is where I come into acceptance that I’m 5’ tall with bright red hair and a lifetime of unusual experiences and a laugh that can carry through a building that I have no intention of quieting.

I’ve been trying to fit in somewhere my entire life, but I’m not supposed to live that life of fitting.

I’m starting to embrace that yes, people have strong reactions sometimes to me. There’s not a lot of safety here. I mean, I’m not blonde or brunette. People don’t often go into a room and say “wow, her hair is really brunette” but they will when they see a true redhead. I’m short, and right now honestly I’m round. Again, things that stand out on either side of a bell curve that causes opinions. I don’t have kids, so a vast amount of my experience is different from people my age, and yes- the opinions will rain down. And the laugh- when I first started dating the person I was seeing told me he was embarrassed of it, my laugh has shown up on company satisfaction surveys, pro and against it, and it’s a strange thing to think about – but that is how it is.

It would help me if there was more to me that was on the scale of normalcy. And I’m not by any means saying that I’m special. I am saying that some things would be easier if more of me fell into something normal.

So I’m starting to sing, and the group of people who get it will hear it as a song, and the majority that don’t will hear it as a scream.

But I’m not here to make things comfortable for people who don’t get it. I’m just here to be, and to live the life I was meant to.