Seeing the spat of "acceptance of self" posts on my flist has given me some introspection. I've never had to come out (other than that time that I had to tell my mom I was straight), but I do remember finally coming to terms with being "different."

While I'd always accepted that I wasn't quite like the other kids (as n8an put it "we live in 'interesting times'"), I can't pretend that I was ever actually ok with it. I never tried to be like the other kids - there was no way I was just ever going to fit in, even if I wore the same clothes, wore the same hair-styles, talked the same way, acted the same way. I was always going to be different, but I wasn't sure I wanted to be different. I wanted to fit in, to some degree. I wanted to be me, but as a young teenager, I wasn't sure how to do that, and still fit in to the only society that I knew.

To say this gave me great grief, and a rather large chip on my shoulder, would be putting it mildly. Entering university gave me the opportunity to be someone else, finally. I changed my name, left my friends, and was next to miserable for nearly a year.

Until I met a great group of incredibly odd people who were not only ok with being odd, but actually embraced it in themselves, and in others. It suddenly didn't matter that my idea of logic was slightly bent; that my sense of humour a little crooked; my sense of being, more broad than narrow. The fact that weird occurances followed me in day-to-day life didn't cause any comment, other than perhaps "you too?!?" It wasn't that they praised someone for being different, rather that it was considered "normal" to be "abnormal."

People like plastikgyrl and n8an showed me that being yourself goes beyond what you've been taught, how you were raised, and what people expected of you. They taught me that strength comes through character, not deeds, that individuality was something to be embraced, not defiantly held up as a shield. notmikesince91, and sykomonkey taught me that being brilliant in one area wasn't a bad thing - being a geek could, in fact, be the entry into a new world. quotation taught me, if belatedly, that being out-spoken could have it's benefits. mightycodking showed me that liking incredibly bad movies didn't mean that I was destined to see them alone, even if he didn't really mean it at the time.

Without this group of people at a desperately needed point in time, who knows where I would be today? They gave me the strength to embrace, accept and become who I was. They were my instructors into who I could be, who I was, and who I wanted to be. Without them, there is no doubt that I wouldn't be who I am now.

A.