Popularity is Overrated

Ever since I was a small child I never fit in with a clique. When I started school, I didn’t speak English so I was different and stood out. I met my childhood best friend in kindergarten and she stayed my friend up until a few years ago. She and I got along great most of our lives, although there were a few times that I back stabbed her and she back stabbed me, it’s bound to happen.

But other than that, there was no steady group of friends. When I go back home to Kenedy there is no group that I can meet for lunch that I can say “These were the girls that I ran with since childhood.”

Anytime that I have found a group that seemed to fit that was full of people who seemed to like me, something happens. I’d say something rude to someone, sleep with someone’s boyfriend, one of them would sleep with my boyfriend, or someone would say that I said something that I didn’t and then everyone would turn their backs on me. It’s happened in every stage of my life, with people from school to my family to my parish (well, I don’t sleep with random people anymore, but I do still say rude things to people.) but especially it has happened on Facebook.

I have some theories on why this happens to me. For one thing, I do not fit in a box, I have always said that, there is no one way to describe my style,vibe or whatever you wanna call it. I can hang with hood rats just as well as I can hang at a bonfire with rednecks. I can shoot whiskey straight, drink boones farm or drink cosmos. If I get real crazy, I’ll drink them all at the same time.

I have hung out with bands like Seether one weekend and then been a runner for Snoop Dogg another. I love Jason Aldean music as well as the Black Crowes, Gun n Roses and Nelly. I can’t stand 2 Chainz, but other than that, I’m pretty flexible when it comes to music genres.

There is no label for me except “Crazy Face”, which is where the name of this blog came from. That makes people, who love to be in a box and have their label maker ready to smack their idea of who that person is on them, very uncomfortable.

Oh, and I’m loud. I laugh loud, I talk loud, I get loud and I don’t have a problem saying “That is some stupid shiiz you are saying right there, fo realz!” to their face.

There are times when I get my feelings hurt when I realize that my dream of having crowds of people as friends is not ever gonna happen for me. There have been times when it seems like it’s gonna happen, and then it’s gone and I just sit around wondering what is wrong with me.

But in the last few weeks I have come to realize something through prayer and just reflecting on who I am and what I’m called to do in this world. I was not made to be popular. There were a lot of very holy people who were not popular. I’m mos def, not holy enough, but the fact is that I know for a fact that I am not one of those people who will ever be Ms. Popular, never have been and never will be. I used to think that was because God didn’t love me or I didn’t love Him enough. The truth is that it’s because holy doesn’t usually jive with popular. Not in the sense that I have thought of it.

Everyone knew who Mother Teresa was so in a way she was popular. She was friends with the Pope and Princess Diana but you didn’t see her having dinner parties at her place or going on trips to Europe and hitting up the coolest clubs. She wasn’t sporting the latest Kardashian sunglasses or yachting in Spain. She was working. She was working on being holy.

There is Kim Kardashian popular and there is Mother Teresa popular. I know which one that I want to follow.

I’m not putting down Kimmy K, I’ll write a post tomorrow on why I watch that show, but I’m just saying that there are people with different priorities and some want to be popular and others want to be saints.

The work that I feel called to do requires me to become holy, not popular. There will be plenty of people who will disagree with me on issues. The one thing that I’ve learned from Pope Francis is that you can’t make all people happy, all you can do is what is right and what is God’s will. I need to learn how to do God’s will more and not my own, but I also need to quit worrying about who does or doesn’t like me. I’ve said that before and yet, I still do worry about it sometimes.

There are people in our faith who make it blatantly obvious that they want everyone to know who they are, who they know and what they have contributed to the faith and that they are the authority on x,y, and z. Let me say this: with my pride, if I was popular and people liked me like that, I would go straight to hell. No doubt. So when I was crying in Jesus’ lap about why do people not get me, His answer to me was “Because you have some serious pride issues and if you had a following, you would be doomed.” Rude. Jesus keeps it real with me.

The only thing that I can do is what I’m called to do, write my lil blog posts, write my lil book and then preach Christ Crucified everywhere I go from the grocery store to the bar. I appreciate those people in my life who know that I’m unlabelable  (I totally made that word up) and love me just as I am.

Popularity is overrated, holiness isn’t.