Conformity is Strangulation

My coffee mug sits on my desk, right by my right hand. Until I bought this glass mug, I’d forget to drink the coffee in the mug, but now that I can see that there is coffee in there, I actually drink it.

What I’ve found is an extra little added bonus to that glass mug is that I can watch the white milk poured into the brown-colored coffee. The swirls and the whorls are interesting to watch!

Right now, my feet are cold, yet I’m sweating. It’s that sensory input that is preventing me from really concentrating on what I’m writing. A-hem…

It’s this oversensitivity that, besides becoming distractions at the worst possible times, causes me to notice the very tiny daisies in the yard, the raucous bugs flying around, the twitch of an over-controlled facial expression, the whispered conversation just out of earshot, the sweltering feel of a satin blouse, the beauty of intonation and the nails-on-a-blackboard screech of instruments out of tune.

With the fan on high to drown out the sounds of outside (and the ringing in my ears), the frustration becomes the feel of the weight of my glasses on my nose that has threatened to bring on a nasty headache since I put them on this morning. At home, alone, all the dogs outside and the horse napping, I am in my environment of the least possible amount of sensory input; my safe haven. I run home every day after hours of overload at work, and once I’m home, it takes a lot to get me to leave again.

When I saw my poor tree yesterday as I walked around with my camera, I thought, “yep, that’s me.” I am strangled by the rules of social conformity and the endless demands. Like the tree, I have to reach above all the forces that threaten to strangle to thrive anyway.

I want to scream out, “let me wear my comfortable, broke-in shoes and cotton tops that don’t distract.” Let me be who and what I am so that I can do my best. Let me listen hard to hear so that I can truly help, and let me remain on the outside looking in so that I can keep hearing in depth, beyond the walls of the social conformity that too often is nothing more than selfish judgmentalism.

To all those that expect me to conform to their version of “fitting in” I say, “sorry.” It ain’t gonna happen. You will just have to accept the fact that, like me, your blood is red, you urinate and defecate, you eat and snore and burp and fart just like I do; but after that, we are individuals. If you can’t accept that, you can’t accept me either. No problem!

Just, leave me be.

My coffee’s gone, and it’s time for a refill. I wonder what the milk going into the dark coffee will look like this time…