Sometimes it's easy to feel like you're the only one.
It's easy to feel like you're the only one, until you encounter a kindred spirit who explains their experiences and feelings and you exclaim, "Same for me!"
Watching Beauty and the Beast was like looking in a mirror, especially the song "Belle" at the beginning (see below). More than one Gaston-character has misunderstood and dismissed my imaginative, creative predilections. I grew up in a small town full of many practical and sporty people. I was the artsy girl practicing piano or reading a book. Anne of Green Gables was my muse and my imaginary bosom friend. Two required novels in high school were lifelines for me:
In The Chrysalids by John Wyndam, I saw how cruel the world could be to people who are different, yet I saw hope for finding others like oneself.
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle was required reading in Grade 7 English. I fell in love with fantasy and the local library became a lifeline, bringing me more Madeleine L'Engle books in which traveling around the world and to the stars.
Thank God my kindred spirits don't all live in books. There are real people, living real lives. Many thanks to Ann-Margret Hovespian, who inspired this post by owning and describing her own uniqueness in this newsletter: Embrace Your Strangeness.
Whimsy does not preclude Wisdom.