Awesomeness

I'm working from home today. I have two goals: laundry and grading. So of course this means I'm breeding animals on my Facebook zoo and reading blogs.* Which is actually a good thing, because now I get to type, hat tip Wil Wheaton. Go read this list of advice from alukima, a young woman at reddit.

Her first point, the same one that, ahem, Wil Wheaton quoted, is one that every girl needs to hear, often. Boys need it too, but the comments to the post and the post itself suggest a gender-inflection that resonates.**

They didn't lie to you in elementary school, being different is awesome.

In high school and my early twenties I was teased for wearing video game related t-shirts. Now the the same girls who teased me often complain to me over facebook about being suck in generic relationships and "wish they had found something to love the way I love gaming". Also, I recently made a bet that my $15 TMNT purse would get more compliments at a bar than a $900 coach purse. I won.

I distinctly remember standing in my grandmother's kitchen when I was around 13 (I think), trying to explain to her that I didn't want to be like everyone else, that I was happy being different, and feeling so unhappy that who I was clearly wasn't good enough for someone who was supposed to love me unconditionally. Thank god I had things like Free To Be You and Me in elementary school, supportive parents, and awesome teachers who encouraged me not to fit in--to do what I wanted. I wouldn't have made it if everyone thought like my grandmother. I still have crappy self-esteem and worry about what people think. But at least I know that being different is awesome. And knowing is half the battle.****


*I do have four sets of sheets hanging up on the line to dry, thankyouverymuch.

**Does that makes sense? I can't seem to come up with a different way of saying it. Both boys and girls are pressured (and I don't think one sex is pressured more than another), but the pressure on girls is in some ways more public because of the way women are objectified in appearance-based and superficial ways. And think of the pressure other-sexed*** kids face.

***I'm using other-sexed as a collective stand in for all kids who don't fit the binary. I know that it's problematic to group a variety of differences in this way.

****ahhahahahahahaha! Seriously, knowing and believing this gets me through the self-doubt.