the trees have spoken.

I have made a new friend.

He is truly kind, and surprisingly respectful. But, I believe that his most perceptible attribute in one word would be: fun. He is very fun. I am not sure I have ever met someone quite like him.

We went on an adventure a few days ago. We stayed up for all hours of the morning, and he explained to me the stars. Exuberant stories were told, laughter was shared; shivering lips and whispered secrets next to breathing waves were the contents of the night. I went to bed with the sound of water in my ears, and cold toes.

However, I had quite the flooring revelation whilst this escapade ensued.

All of my life I had a specific mindset of what I wished most desperately to become. Perhaps it might sound familiar: To be beautiful, loved by many, to be known by all, musically engrossed and in short, accepted. This new friend is all of that. He is perhaps the most friendly and easily likable person I have ever met. EVERYONE knows him. But I noticed something else too. Are you ready?

The person that he has become, as wonderful as it is, is not ME.

Nearly every comment I heard was about how a certain song was “cool” because he and his friends had discovered and agreed upon it, how a certain eating facility was “cool” because they had deemed it so, and that only a handful of particular activities were “cool”.

Did he not have any opinion of his own? Did he truly enjoy having his ideas and innermost thoughts crushed by popular conception? What did he truly feel? (I attempted to ask him this, but all he knew were the answers that had been fed to him. No words from the beating heart inside his body.)

I began to be self conscious just being around him and his friend because the absolute obsession with what was popular within his wide and varied social circle was apparent; and I didn’t feel I made the cut.

I love exotic foods you have to eat with your hands from small out of the way places. Not chic, sophisticated restaurants crammed with the most socially proficient college students.

I like wearing clothes that are blend-able and cheap, that are wore with the specific intention of shrinking into the lining of the walls to watch people walk by. Not clothes that are loud and exclusive, that must have cost at least three of my paychecks combined.

I like singing opera and listening to instrumentals that make me cry. Not playing ukuleles and having your senses entirely drowned in the talentless whine of some obscure band.

I like walking alone in the dark, surrounded by all that is God, and finding secret places in the world to hide and burry my heart. Not surrounded by loud, flirtatious laughter, pseudo lifestyles, and anxious attempts to be conventional.

I realized that everything that I have been quietly wanting for such a long time -- a burning desire to be “normal” – was actually not what I wanted at all. While sitting on a pier with a boy I hardly knew, I came to the grounding realization that I actually LIKED who I was. My mind, cogs turning, finally found that I didn’t actually care that I was different. I was truly uniquely me.

Who cares that I like playing nerdy adventure games instead of doing my homework? Who cares if I pretend I host talk shows to my bedroom mirror? Who cares that I walk for ages with my eyes closed, or that I run in the rain, or that I make a fool of myself in front of children because I love to hear them laugh? Who cares that I can’t fall in love?

I’ve wanted so long to be able to change myself, in order to be received as “one of them”. I care more about what my Father in Heaven thinks than what they do. I know that I will always be in amongst the people of the world, but I will never be one with them. And its okay. I am different; and I like that about me.

So, thanks to my new friend -- who loves people per his personality – I was able to discover who I am, and what I want out of life.

What a great existance I lead.

~C