It’s Okay to be Quirky

IT’S OKAY TO BE QUIRKY

I think we are all a little, well, quirky. It’s okay to be quirky. We all have some ‘tick’ in our get-a-long. It’s been there for a while, some we remember having for decades. Like, I always make my bed. I have since I was a child. I’ve gotten better at it, but forever, I’’ve liked a neat room. I buy dented cans.  I think who else will allow that can to live out their destiny of pouring their goodness out for us to use? My little finger on my right hand only will bend backwards-and stay there. I think mayonnaise, in particular Best Foods, is or should be one of the major food groups. I cannot think of anything which fulfills my taste bud’s happiness as much as mayo on a slice of cheese—on top of a potato chip. My underwear is called in to service, along with my shirts and shorts, from left to right as I place them in the drawer. I take from the right, and restock them on the left, moving the folded garments over to the right when those shirts are gone.

Don’t judge me.

I think we all do have—ticks. I think we’re all a little quirky. Some, more than others. Like Winston Churchill didn’t get out of bed and conducted war business from his bed-in his jammies. That’s quirky. And don’t even get me going on the guy from North Korea and his hair. I’m not sure quirky is a word for that.

     I’m just talking about you and me.

I’m not talking about Crazy Pants quirky, like John Wayne Gacy or North Korea. I’m talking about you and me. The guy who mows his lawn in an old pair of dress shoes. God does that. He makes us, well, odd. I makes each of us unique.

In a good way. Then, we mess it up.

Like the other day. I told my second child, ‘Hey, I’ll get you and me a sandwich from this place we like sandwiches from. She and her husband were hosting a birthday party and they had cardboard pizza which came with the bouncy house. She liked a tuna sandwich from a restaurant we both go to and so do I, so I ordered two. Instead of the sixth major food group being slathered on it, they mistook the word mayonnaise with mustard. A tuna sandwich with mustard.  I am sure there are some people who like mustard on their tuna sandwich, but I would think that was quirky.

     Quirky is a good thing.

Quirky is a good thing. It’s like adding paprika to food. Some people don’t like to be quirky, or others to be so. It makes them nervous. ‘What the hell is he going to do now?’ I can be that way. I can be judgmental about people, what they are doing, wearing, acting like; measuring them to my own self-defined standards. Or we, as a group, or class, or club, or some Greek organization, gather, develop a handshake and secret wink, and set ourselves apart. Sometimes, that is good. Not everyone is cut from a cloth used to make a United State Marine or a Naval Aviator. Those ‘clubs’ can be pretty sacred. We are pack animals anyway. We sometimes like to run in packs.

I think Jesus was quirky. In the season he walked on this rock, He was just a different guy. Other people wanted to be with him. I bet around campfires, he would tell jokes like ‘a horse walks into a tavern….’ Then, he would fart.

“Rabbi, holy mother of you, what was that?’ One of the men with him would say in laughter. He was human after all and walked and ate and did what we did.  A single, middle-aged rabbi telling horse in a bar joke. That is quirky.

     We are each different

Each of us, are different, and come from different backgrounds. We sleep differently; some sleep on our side, some on our back, some on our stomach. We eat organic or eat what’s on sale. Some of us vote left, or right or down the middle All of which is our season and where we are and sets us in a direction for where we are going.

There is and always has been a perfect plan. It includes many things-including our differences. That always was part of The Plan.

Enjoy the ride.

The Good and Kind Man (markjwilliams.com)

About – Inside Our Gooey Minds (patheos.com)