Rabbit Write

I want to take you back to what might be a scary place…a place which you’ve exiled to the bottom of your pool of memories, a place called… grade school. Once your brain begins flooding with the images and memories of your 4th grade self, take a second to remember how it felt. Do you remember how you felt about yourself during that time? Do you remember what your social standing was? Did you ever feel like you were just…weird?

There was no denying my weirdness. At age 11, I  preferred bright yellow hand-me-down overalls to… whatever was cool and wore my hair in two long braided pleats (as if the crooked blunt bangs cut by my Mother weren’t enough.) If what you recalled was feeling cool and popular, this piece is not really for you. This post is dedicated to all of the weird-little-kids, still camping out inside of us.

Of course being a weird kid went much deeper than just having a closet of awkward second hand clothes, poor clothing does not truly denote the weirdness of a kid – however my obsessive rock-collecting, zelda-playing and intricate story-writing might say more. I remember feeling weird because it seemed I was on the outside of my school, of the social bubbles, of my family and even friends. It is as if the weird kid sees the dance of cultural norms and socially accepted behavior and chooses not to participate, or can’t imagine doing so.

One example that comes to my mind was the first day of 4th grade. Dumped on the playground, I immediately went to my friends from the previous year. As we walked around the balance beam all they could talk about was how they had started shaving their legs over the summer and how cool they were. I walked away, knowing that this was something I was not interested in, and spent the year talking with other exiles,  trying to figure out where I fit. I questioned what was around me, I was in touch with and respected my emotions. I refused to bend, and the fact that I felt alone ached so very much. But at the same time I was very strong in self, changing was not an option but exploring everything about myself (whether it exiled me further or not) was.

I think a strong sense of self is the common thread among weird kids, which is such a valuable and elusive quality of character. It is what many of us spend our adult lives trying to delicately maintain or achieve. So why do so many of us push away the weird kid inside of us and the memories of the world they inhabited? As I mentioned it is painful to remember a difficult time, but perhaps we are pushing away what that weird kid represented.

I know about when I started to repress my inner-weird-kid and the memories of grade school, it was at the beginning of high-school and by then the rush of hormones gave “fitting in” an urgent-status. As I realized I inhabited a “cute-girl” body and that all it took to fit in was faking it, I repressed my inner-weird-kid.

As an adult, it makes sense that at times we’d repress the inner-weird-kid, in the work place and other social situations letting the weird inner-child just take over could result in blank stares, murmurs and exile all over again. But listening to the weird kid doesn’t mean letting that aspect of your personality take over. I think those of us with inner-weird kids are lucky to have them as guides, and should let them have a say, a place in who we are!

If it weren’t for counseling with this part of myself I don’t think I would have the quality of relationships I do (those needy teenage parts didn’t exactly pick friends based on virtue.) Embracing this part has also allowed me to step outside of set gender roles and even the hierarchies of sexes in society and the work place. While there is a part of me that is always worried about being nice, attractive and feminine, the weird kid really doesn’t care. When that part can step in, able to be strong in self, curious and logical without the worry of looks and impressions, a lot can get done. My inner-child also brings a valuable thirst for knowledge. We are not encouraged to question the world around us as adults and I think this is the time we must do it. Without questioning the ideals and structures of a world we aren’t happy with, change and growth could never happen.

Engaging the kid-within might involve getting to know them again, earning their trust by acknowledging and accepting them, listening to them, loving them for the first time. There is no trick once you’ve started exploring, the weird kid has been inside you all along, perhaps pushed to the tiniest crevice you could find, but still there. You can let your inner child have a say by simply consulting them. What do they think is wrong or right in the situation. Does x actually interest them? What would they like to say or do?

A friend once said to me, “I think I was never as wise as I was at age 10″ and this always stuck with me. Those wise ten year old’s  haven’t gone anywhere and I’ve found that their wisdom is still strangely spot-on.

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