Prompt: Beautifully Different (Reverb 10)

Q: Beautifully Different. Think about what makes you different and what you do that lights people up. Reflect on all the things that make you different - you'll find they're what make you beautiful.

Where do you start with a prompt like this? My sister sent me her thoughts on what makes me different (in the beautiful sense of course). One sentence that really stood out was "the fact that you’ve ALWAYS danced to the tune of your own beat". This stood out because as soon as i read it my first thought was whether i had danced myself out of the party.


I would guess the biggest thing that makes me different to most people is the way i think. A university lecturer once commented that he liked the way I thought. I didn't really understand it at the time but i have come to over the years as more and more people have commented on it.


The best way to describe it is to say i have a butterfly brain. Most people think in straight lines whereas my thoughts are more like a constellation than a constant line of consciousness.


I am also a contradiction to many people because of the choices i make. This is based on nothing more than  refusing to subscribe to the school of 'cool' or the strangle hold of 'shoulds' (well OK the 'shoulds are a little more difficult to rebel against but you get the picture). I would rather have a love of many things than be restricted by someone else's ideal of what a person like me 'should' be in to. There are too many 'shoulds' and 'should nots' in this life. Being the only white kid in school with an Afro set the tone on that one (a home perm that went bad).


In many ways i am every bit the same as the person next to me. A lot of bones and consciousness in a skin bag that gets kicked around from time to time but somehow manages to bounce back and occasionally score an own goal.


I use words and baking to express what i can not say and i have seen those words and sweet treats light people up at the rarest of moments. I like to think that's because they see or at least sense the sincerity that sits behind them. I believe in simple gestures as well as the grand ones and a confidence spoken is a confidence kept. 


All of these things make me different and many more besides. Do they make me beautiful? To some yes, to others no. As long as those i love can love me back by some small degree it doesn't really matter.