Portends of Grrr...

I've been in a stew. My aunt said it best, "When you are sick, everything has portends of doom." Yesterday, I talked to a school advisor who said I would probably end up working in a coffee shop, (or was it a gas station?) after hearing my professional plans. Asshole. For some reason, knowing that I was going to ignore his advice gave me the same feeling as Allison running from the cops. I felt like I stepped into another reality, without the protection afforded by following the sanctioned rules of the group. I saw my reflection in the blank TV, with my matter of fact eyes, and could see the little girl I used to be, with no respect for authority for authority’s sake, no respect for rules that didn't make sense. I used to refuse to call adults by their last name and would call them by their first name, as they did with me. Are some of us just born that way, or is it a product of my childhood where I was inherently an outsider, so I could see with more unsocialized eyes?

I went to the library to get more videos to ease my at-home-with-the-flu boredom. I was looking for videos that would make me feel better and change my darkening world view. It's interesting how many movies have the theme of the individual vs. the group. I checked out Cold Sassy Tree and Clueless, among others. I watched Cold Sassy Tree. The main character is trying to find a home and is shunned for her non-conformity by the townspeople. I can relate. Luckily she finds a stand up man, so she has a framework of safety around her different ness. I can relate to that too. No matter how weird you are, if you have a stand-up conformist-seeming man, you are still acceptable, not dangerous as you might be on your own. Yesterday it seemed to me that so much art, like movies and music, was made by non-conformists who were sending secret messages out to us other non-conformists telling us, "It's alright, keep following your dreams, you can find a way, a path, no matter what the herd says."

Seemingly paradoxically , I am finally discovering how important having a group is to me, and am learning to reach out to people when I need help. It’s a very healthy thing for me. Yesterday I could viscerally feel the safety in it, especially after watching the Net! (It's not the video to watch when you are feeling jumpy from running from the cops, or sick.)