Growing up, the word weird was thrown around, a LOT. As a kid being called weird was an everyday occurrence. I knew I was weird.. I saw it, I felt it. It was the emotions that seemed to flip on and off but I could never see or feel the switch. It was the hour-long matches of screaming the same few sentences over and over at my parents, hoping to find the true words I needed. As if someone had wired my brain wrong and all of the wires were exposed, snapping, and sparking. Weird was the word people used when they saw a kid like me. One who was too loud,to sensitive,too much,too quiet..never the “right amount” of anything. My family always tried to brush it off, saying things like "well the whole family is weird,kiddo” as if its supposed to make it easier or hurt less. In reality it made me feel as though my issues were something to laugh off or dismiss. For most of my life I believed it, believed I would never fit in anywhere, and even used the word to describe myself without ever taking the time to define it for myself.
I carried that word like a scar I didn't realize was still healing. It didn't fade; with time, it just changed shape. With time my vision of weird changed and I realized it wasn't the insult everyone seemed to use it as. And it certainly wasn't a flaw of any kind. It was my power. Every part of me that they (and me) tried to label, shrink, or silence was a part that made me impossible to copy.
Weird was never an insult. It was a prophecy.
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