Free . . . or just Weird?

How free do you feel?

I mean, do you feel free enough to be your authentic self no matter what anyone else thinks?

Seriously. Do you? Sometimes I think I do, but sometimes I'm not so sure.

Here's an example of what I mean. Yesterday Baby Boy felt free enough to go to the public library dressed like a ninja. Not just a regular ninja either, a really ninja-ey ninja, even though everyone else was wearing regular clothes.

Take a look

What you can't really see in this photo is the great big bandage wrapped sword or the knife wounds he drew on his face with one of my eyeliner pencils that really put the cherry on top of this little ensemble. ;-)

When I asked him if anyone else was wearing a costume or if anyone looked at him like he was crazy, his response was "Some old man said I looked cool." He said it with about as much enthusiasm as if he had just told me the sky was blue. In other words, none whatsoever.

He has been enjoying a particular graphic novel series (at least he's reading, right?) this summer and got so enamored with one of the characters, that he actually saved his hard earned money, researched online, and purchased himself a costume to wear just because he wanted to. I mean this child was walking around a conservative (Ha Ha Hee Hee! We got by them!) suburban neighborhood in a full-fledged ninja costume in the middle of the Texas summer heat (it was 102 degrees here yesterday, by the way).

You see, he was wearing the costume for himself, because he liked it and wanted to wear it. He wasn't wearing it to impress anyone else or to see what kind of reaction he would get. It just didn't matter to him.

This is one of the things that really impresses me about my son. When I was his age, I was so busy trying to "fit in" and do just the right things, and wear just the right clothes, and go to just the right places (failing miserably on all accounts, by the way), that I almost lost myself in the mix. I think it's amazing that somehow Mom #2 and I have managed to raise a son who doesn't give a flying fig about what others think of him. I think of it as private liberation, personal freedom.

I mean I am fully aware that sometimes when our homeschool group gets together, we can look like a big old bunch of misfits, and that used to bother me a little bit. I really wanted people to think of us as "normal" people who just happen to homeschool.

Now I know that when I look at that brood of bohemians, that I'm looking at individual pillars of freedom, with Baby Boy (bless his heart) at the head of the pack. Long live the King!


They always make me smile.


So now you all officially have my permission to embrace your inner weirdo today and every day.


Go forth and wreak havoc on all that is plain, usual, and ordinary.



Until next time . . .