Weird like me...

I started this post nearly three weeks ago, but I still don't really know how to get out what I want to say.  I saw a quote from Johnny Depp today, and it got me going.

"I think everybody’s weird. We should all celebrate our individuality and not be embarrassed or ashamed of it." ~~ Johnny Depp

I have a lot of friends and even more "close acquaintances.  When we went to a homeschool roller skate recently I was shocked at how many people I knew there.  When I pick up Bear from gymnastics I know all the people at he gym.  At Curly's dance competition I knew many more people than just her current group.  So how is it that someone who knows so many people and can carry on pleasant conversations in so many different circles can feel so out of touch sometimes.

I sometimes wonder if homeschooling made us weird or if we homeschool because we are weird.  I mean (although I know it isn't politically correct to mention) homeschoolers are by definition not normal.  Normal people send their kids off to school every day, but homeschoolers don't.  Normal kids spend their days in school while homeschooled kids spend their days doing "Goodness knows what."

Of course making homeschooling the scapegoat forgets the fact that for most of my life I  never really "fit in" perfectly.  In elementary school I would rather sit in the corner and read than try to conform.  By junior high I figured out how not to stick out like a sore thumb, but most of my friends were not like me.  High school was a dream.  Somehow I found lots of other misfits.  We were nerds, geeks, artists, etc.  When I hear the horror stories about high school I think of how fortunate I was.  College was fun, and I made some great friends there, and I found my soul-mate of course.  Still, with the exception of my husband, I am not sure I made any life-long friends.

Sometimes I think I operate in too many circles to keep up lasting friendships in any of them.  My homeschool friends don't "get" how intense and emotionally draining the girls competitions are.  I feel like during the season it is what I have to talk about most of the time, and I try not to because I am afraid of coming across like I belong on an episode of Dance Moms.  With my friends from Bear's gymnastics I feel like we will always be the weird family that homeschools.  As with all non-homeschoolers I feel the need to constantly put a good face forward.  So that I don't add to the stereotypes that homeschoolers get.

This is especially hard when Bear is at an age where she is terribly over sensitive.  At least once a week she comes home feeling like someone has wronged her in some way.  She has it the worst in terms of having friends.  She is seems to be struggling with how to fit in and still be her tomboy self.  She has the added burden that her gymnastics friends talk about school a lot, and she is much younger than all of them. I remember Curly going through the same kind of thing at basically the same age, and she came out mostly unscathed, but it is hard to watch your kid flounder...

So back to the quote...

"I think everybody’s weird. We should all celebrate our individuality and not be embarrassed or ashamed of it." ~~ Johnny Depp

This post has taken me weeks to write because although I totally agree with Johnny Depp that everybody's weird in their own way.  Some days I just need to know that some are weird like me...