BY: Gina "Dorkina" Guarascio
She was "that" girl in high school. The one who wore those tall black boots that zipped up the side with heels, short skirts, red lips, charcoal on her eyes - plaid, strips, dots - colors all over, or, completely, totally, black.
Whatever screamed, "Look at me!" she wore.
She was the preachers daughter, no doubt rebelling against the stoic family values her father (who eventually divorced and ran off with the secretary) espoused every Sunday. She had a little VW Rabbit that clipped right along, buzzing through the school parking lot everyday. Her license plate read "Y B NRML". She roared by, a glare glued on her face.
While I kept my distance from "that" girl, like everyone did, I could totally relate. My biggest fear in life, ever since I old enough to contemplate such things, was being "normal". Even more, just being mediocre, average, the same same. So, I could relate to "Y B NRML" and her crazy, freakish ways, even though I was much more of a dork than a freak. For some reason, I didn’t care. Even in my tender teenage years I knew that life was a precious gift and I wasn’t going to just blend in with the wallpaper. I didn’t have to have some terminal illness to realize this, or have my friends die in rivers and on the road to know that one must live for the day.
This day.
Today.
It was easier when I was younger to live like that, without a care, really just taking it one moment at a time. I could let my mind, my body, my spirt, drift, shackled only by the limits of the universe, or more accurately, by my own imagination. It was easier when all my belongings fit in my car and when I didn’t mind sharing the floor with the cockroaches or crabs in some foreign country. It’s harder the older I get, the more stuff I acquire, the more bills I pay... add to the mix a husband, two hounds and a condo and my "Carpe Diem!" looks a lot like everyone elses. But I’m OK with that now. I don’t have to paint my lips red and wear the black zip up boots and proclaim, out loud, for everyone to see, "Look, I am NOT normal. I am NOT like everyone else!"
Just like any teenager with a mohawk, blue hair, piercings _______ (fill in the blank) or a tattoo on the lower back, I’ve screamed out. I’ve demanded to be different by doing dumb things that are really all the same as everyone else who yearns to validate just how special and unique they are. Guess what? We’re all different, we’re all special. So what? Being different isn’t my goal anymore, being better is my goal, being interesting, and interested, being provocative, enlightened, healthy, happy, passionate, out loud, and at times, completely outrageous.
Anything but boring.
Anything but average.
Anything but mediocre.
My guru, Bikram Choudhury often says, "I hate boring people." Yeah, it’s not cool to hate, but the world is full of stuffed suits, stuffing their faces and perpetuating the madness of mediocrity while selling you an image of everything that you are not. I think it’s time we all got naked (figuratively, at least til spring time), and sang songs on the street. Let your light shine.
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that frightens us. We ask ourselves: Who am I to be, brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually who are you not to be?"
- Marianne Williamson
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