Old thoughts from high school that somehow resurfaced this morning

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#1

A realization hit me a little while ago when I woke up in pain again. LOL! I wrote a paper based on Jonathon Livingston Seagull back in 1978. I got an “A” on that paper. ha ha. What good did it do for me? nothing. I was an outcast to society then. I’m still an outcast now. That is all that it has shown me. My problem? I fit in society on the edge of the “group” Not close enough to belong to that group. Their answer? Kick me out. Problem with that? I’ve got just enough glue on me to stick with a pertinacity that “they” cant get rid of. I can wear their style of clothes,talk like “them” walk like “them”; but I’m just “weird enough to stick out like a sore oozing blister. I remind “them” of everything deep within themselves that “they” don’t like about themselves. What is it about me? One wise older psychologist told me years ago, “You are like Rembrandt,Mozart,Picasso, and a few other of that “guild.” “You are pragmatic,iconoclastic and you will never fit unless you choose to conform.” sigh… Try as I do… I still can’t fit. Society doesn’t want me. My life circumstances are too much for people to grasp. How can everything that I say be true? HA HA! Just live on the edge and see. When you live on the edge of society; you live more experiences that others can only glimpse. The problem with that? You learn something from an older generation … like how to haul water from a spring, cook on a coal and wood cookstove. Then, you tell someone “my age” that I’ve done these things… that “someone” doesn’t believe you. Calls you crazy. Then, I visit an elderly nursing home and talk to an elder. I tell them how to haul the water, where on the stove you place your pan to fry or boil or keep a steady simmer… ha ha! they say” You really do know how!Only someone that has done it really knows what they are talking about” The old,elder embraces me and says “Thankyou for sharing with me.” That elder validated me. The problem? Society still does not validate me. My neighbors want nothing to do with me or my family. I am a legal citizen of the United States of America and I do not fit. As a matter of fact, I don’t fit anywhere. I’m still living as an outcast, just like Jonathon Livingston Seagull. Life for me now as a mom of 7 children with one child in fostercare,diabetic,depressed,knowledgeable,person of no particular age or color still does not fit. My problem??? I keep trying. I keep paying prices of pain to fit in a society that does not want me. It is because I fell into a mudslide and held on a little too tightly that I stick out like a sore oozing wound. “I” must be taken care of so that no one sees this ugly blemish. That’s it!!! I’m an ugly blemish that cant be covered by makeup/insurance that wont “cover” me! Society that cant scrape me into prison to hide me because I haven’t done anything “wrong” Society cant hide me in an insanity institution because… I score too high on their scale to be hidden there! You cant hide me there. You cant hide me anywhere! Just like “Where’s WALDO?” After all… I’m still Jonathon Livingston Seagull. I look like “YOU” I have feathers like “YOU” … YOU cant see me, hear me, touch me …the problem??? I am still here sitting on the edge of your conscience bothering you. Bothering society because I don’t fit.

Do you remember the end of the story??? What about the Ugly Duckling? What about the Prodigal Son? That is all of Whom I really am. I am the Johnathon Livingston Seagull,Ugly Duckling, Prodigal Son that still does not fit into any particular part of the society of America or for that matter any country of this world. So, Why am I here? I don’t know. Somehow, life lead me here and I met a few people here. I’ve cried,laughed,despaired right beside you… I still don’t fit. The problem? I want to fit… but circumstances wont let me fit. I’m a lost rolling stone. I gather nothing. I cant seem to “stick” in society long enough to grow roots and conform enough to fit. It hurts to never fit anywhere.

Just like Jonathon, the ugly duckling, the prodigal son, I want a real family, a real mom,dad, brother,sister, etc. I am after all still a human being. So whether you like it or not … I do fit.

I fit because I look like you, act like you, talk like you,and everything that is human about you is also just like me. I am a human being. Because I’m a human being that has emotions,desires, hopes and dreams… you crush me because I dont “fit” where “you” want me to "fit."
Amazing how almost 30 years hasn’t changed much. Amazing that the world of diabetes has changed so much and so little in those same almost 30 years. A cure? No “they” just want more money. sigh… I’m surely a depressed/oppressed person. Or is it just “what a mess?”

#2

Hey MeadowLark, just because society doesn’t embrace you doesn’t mean that there are those of us that won’t. I embrace you with all my heart hon ( Balto phrase) this is where you belong so pull up a chair and have a cuppa tea or coffee or whatever poison you like. I know that there are times I look CLOSELY at my pain pills and think…HMMMMM… Just one day at a time gets me through most bs. I have always been outside of society’s scope of normal but if I tried and fit in then where would all the normal people look at in horror…:wink: Just hang in there I know our truck sounds like it’s on it’s last legs… I just got out of the hospital with a reaction but on the bright side my sugars are good…Keep posting and I’ll read them at least I don’t feel so alone out here.

#3

You have a nice and twisted sense of humor Judith and yes I think we should have a Depressive Lady Weirdos Do Lunch at MeadowLark’s sounds like a restaurant and I can be the cook since thats what I do best… What do you say MeadowLark??? Weird Woman Unite against the normals sounds a bit like a conspiracy group. You both rock in my book…

#4

I think many of us are “on the edge, looking in”, invited to the party out of a sense of obligation rather than the true enjoyment of our company. Sometimes the issue is us: too loud, too quiet, too independent, too strong-minded, or with life experiences so different from “the rest of the crowd” that they don’t know how to relate to us, or we to them.

Many of us are the intuition of that society, the psychic undertone that sees what they cannot – because we allow ourselves to see it, or because we don’t know how to hide it from our minds. Sometimes we can use that separation consciously, to give us Vision. Sometimes that vision comes unbidden. For me, that Vision is there to guide others, and I am placed, by whatever image you choose to call Deity, in situations where that guidance is required.

In such manner, we are created Angels, Messengers, Teachers, and Artists.

It is a Holy Calling, one to which we all are Called. As we more closely approach the goals of Deity, we are increasingly Called Upon, and we are increasingly able to acquit ourselves well on those Calls.

We have embraced the Mother Goddess, and she is us. We embrace the Crone Goddess, who shows us the ways of wisdom and grace.

We eschew the sacrifice of self that “society” appears to require, as that would tear us from our Goddess-selves.

We embrace all that is life, and understand that life begins and ends as an idea, and as ideas never die, so are we, too Immortal.

#5

Thankyou tmana.
I’m feeling alot like when I wrote this post. “again” This world seems to close and open in such odd ways. I’m feeling older than my years and reflective in that really odd way. Sometimes, I feel like an fossll out of place. LOL! Wrap me in lace… place tea cup in my hand and give me an “old” way of speaking dawling and maybe I"ll just fit.for a few minutes.

#6

I’ve been fortunate to find friends, and groups of friends, who will accept me as I am, quirks/insights and all. And I think one of the blessings of life experiences is learning how to let a lot of those slings and arrows flow over and around you, like the water flowing around a stone in the middle of the brook.
Still, I can understand how it feels to be a generation out of time. It’s not easy when we are reminded that we are a generation older, or younger, than we feel, and our “current events” are someone else’s “history”. But again, as long as we are flexible enough to learn and adapt, we are not fossils: we are timeless.

#7

So… we are the historians, the repositories of the knowledge our peers wish to discard? Are we the outcasts hiding at the riverbank at the end of Fahrenheit 451, known by the names of the books they memorized before the Firemen incinerated them? Look, LaceLover – WoodStove has just left a comment!

Seriously, one of my house-mates at university was a direct descendant of Priscilla Mullins and John Alden; his family owned an 18th-century farmhouse in New Hampshire. (The property was a working tree farm.) The “indoor plumbing” has been updated to a cold-water kitchen sink, but it was turned off before the first frost – leaving only the pump at the side of the road. For most of us, the tour of the farmhouse was our first exposure to commodes and chamber pots. The “gravity toilet”, as our colleague described it, was accessed by walking through the attached storage barn and was a lot more “modern” than what I’d expected of an outhouse…