This weekend was one of those family events that I was both violently excited for and completely exhausted about in advance: My little cousin’s wedding. She and I grew up more like sisters and I have adored her like a little pet of great cuteness all of her life. I was to be one of her bridesmaids.

It was a beach wedding in Duluth beautifully equipped with lots and lots of sand and a quaint little beach clubhouse for the reception all covered inside and out with weathered wood.

I drove alone to Duluth the day before the wedding to help get things finished up and since I still have a good measure of social retardation, my awkward blunders began immediately upon my arrival, starting with my very first stop at Walmart to help my mom and aunt pick up a few extra things.

From a distance, I saw someone in the deli who I could have sworn was a good friend from school. Though we haven’t seen each other in person in seventeen years we email each other book chapters from the novels we are each writing (John!).

I wandered over to the Deli counter to get a better look and ended up standing behind him in line until he turned and told me to go ahead, he wasn’t getting anything. At this moment I began studying his face, noticing the similarities were striking, but he was much older than I had thought from the distance and his hair was greying. As I ran these figures through my head I just stood there staring at him blankly for several seconds too long without speaking and his friendly cheerful face suddenly fell. I shook my head and mumbled something like “uh, no” and wandered away, leaving him looking confused and perhaps a little wounded.

I then audibly talked to myself about the scene for the next twenty minutes or so, as I walked along behind my mom and aunt watching them load gigantic tubs of sour cream into the cart, about how I could have handled the entire thing differently and how I hope I didn’t hurt the guy’s feelings (especially when we awkwardly passed one another again and his eyes caught mine for a second before casting downwards quickly, looking slightly rejected.) This upset me further and I wish I would have told him why I was really staring at him and acting strange about it.

That day I was one of the weird people at Walmart everyone is always talking about. People regarded me with curiosity and maybe a little bit of fright. Of course it’s my hair, so I am used to it. The way-up-north culture sees very little of small white women with a massive head of wild dreadlocks. But being aware of this I make sure to smile and make eye contact often: (see, I am a nice clean respectable person). But I often turn to find a person staring at me looking stunned and uneasy so I smile at them, but they most often look away quickly without returning it as if I might be dangerous or contagious.

The thing about being different in whatever way, is that you often find yourself on the outside of where everyone else seems to be.

So my mystery for today is:

How to be Present & Available (and not a snob) When you are Different 

I see it all the time: People who are set apart, who choose to be different in certain ways, acting as though this elevates them to a separate plane from those they now see as the lowly commoners.

Those who have chosen to find the success of the business world often put off this aura of not being available to associate with the rest of the working class world.

People who are set apart in the church world often act as though they cannot associate with those that are rougher around the edges in lifestyle.

Those that eat a certain way act as though they may get Leprosy if they don’t sneer at the food that is offered them whilst simultaneously whipping a bag of carrots from their pocket with vigor in a self-righteous display designed to say: I was prepared for this situation and have brought protection from your swill!

And if you’ll notice the pattern: these people put off an aura of self-righteousness that sends people even farther from them, isolating themselves in their own little sad world of sameness, devoid of diversity and flavor.

I happen to be very different when it comes to most things. I like things a certain way and it happens to be the opposite of the way most people I know like them. But I also greatly value diversity. I would hate it if everyone I knew was exactly like me. How boring! I am around me all the time. I want something different than that.

And as we ladies went from place to place on the wedding day getting ready, I was doing everything different than the rest of the girls, but I was still present with them. I missed nails because it was so early, so I did my own in my Jeep. While the rest of them were getting their hair curled with hot irons, pinned to their heads in elaborate coifs with six hundred bobby pins and sprayed with enough hairspray as to become susceptible to open flame from a great distance, I sat with my wild mess of curly hair in an empty chair and talked and laughed with them. While they were getting their faces adorned with prom night levels of painted-ness I watched and told them how beautiful they looked while my face remained clean and natural the way I like it. At the Hibachi grill for lunch as they were getting saki sprayed directly into their mouths by the chef I was being just as funny and goofy with them sober, because I happen to dislike alcohol. But never in any of it did I feel like I wasn’t present with them, really there. And never once did I think my way was better then theirs. I adored them just the way they all were and felt honored to be with them through it all.

For the wedding I convinced the other bridesmaids to go barefoot with me. And then I ate with everybody, selecting things from the spread that I felt comfortable eating and filling my plate with them, never once making it obvious that I had a different sort of diet and even commenting authentically on the fine choice of caterer (Famous Dave’s!).

Some people take their differences and they walk around a room holding them up like entitlements. You can feel the very statement I think I am better than you are oozing off of them like a nasty odor and it makes people avoid them. These people are isolating themselves. They will never thrive like this, not really, because true thriving is cultivated in real relationships with a wide variety of people sorts.

I may be different, but that should not make me feel like I’m better than anyone. When I catch myself thinking this way (it happens to everyone at some point) I give myself a nice sobering kick in the ego backside and tell myself to come back down to earth and join the rest of humanity. I may do things a certain way but that does not mean I should isolate from people who don’t. I may have diet preferences but I never want to make anyone feel like what they offer me is not good enough. I may not like drinking but I can get silly with my friends when they get tipsy (and sometimes they don’t even notice that I am not). I may go to church but that does not define me, I don’t feel much different from the guy leaning on the open bar with red cheeks and I will stop and have a laugh with him because he looks like he is fun and we are related now. I may be a big cousin but yesterday I was a proud big sister and I enjoyed every minute of being a part of and present for a thing that was very different from me.

With all my love I would like to congratulate Jeremy and Kate Wagenbach. I love my new family. I am so grateful that you two brought us all together.

 

 

 

 

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