GREY ~ “An intermediate color between black and white, a neutral or achromatic color, meaning literally a color ‘without color’” (Wikipedia).
Whimsical realism isn’t the only way that my personality is a study in contradictions. I am also what I like to call a “rule-following nonconformist.” What that means is: I love grey areas!
I remember as a child hearing a comment regarding my favorite animals at the time – panda bears and orcas: “That is fitting. They are black and white like you.” I followed rules almost obsessively. I had a strong and persistent sense of fairness. I loved facts and spouted them off like an encyclopedia. So I understand how people assumed that I am a black and white person. The obvious signs pointed to “yes.”
But internally, a war was taking place. If something was popular because “everyone wanted it,” it was the LAST thing that I wanted (my high school wardrobe attested to that). “Titanic” was THE movie of my teen years, and I finally watched it under duress and hated it. I reveled in the obscure, the different, the unique. I lived in dread of being like everyone else.
As I entered adulthood, this internal tendency became more external. A joy of my higher education was how music and literature are full of grey. My eclectic musical preferences (from country to rock orchestra, from Celtic to Classic, and a lot in between) befuddled those who saw me in a “Classical” box. I loved Shakespeare, Poe, Lucy Maud Montgomery, and contemporary fiction, and I was fascinated by those authors who struggled to balance darkness and light.
When I became a mother in the age of “this is the BEST way to do it,” the fight fueled by the internet’s flood of every parenting method available, my motto became “I do what works for me, all else be hanged.” I love information – I listen to advice – I don’t judge your methods – and I use what is useful and discard what is not. This has made my conversations with a spectrum of mothers with multitudes of methods both calm and fruitful. It is a hard, arduous road that we mothers tread. I will advise should one ask, but I will not lecture.
There are people in my life who will be in disbelief as they read this. Those who still perceive me as rigid and intractable. And in some ways, I am. I refuse to be nailed down. I fight against being locked into one space, one preference, one method of living this crazy and ever-changing merry-go-round of life. And don’t get me wrong – there are many absolutes in my life. Rules. Laws. Truths. I follow them strictly. But in everything else, in all matters of opinion or debatable fact, I see in grey scale.
Whimsical realism isn’t the only way that my personality is a study in contradictions. I am also what I like to call a “rule-following nonconformist.” What that means is: I love grey areas!
I remember as a child hearing a comment regarding my favorite animals at the time – panda bears and orcas: “That is fitting. They are black and white like you.” I followed rules almost obsessively. I had a strong and persistent sense of fairness. I loved facts and spouted them off like an encyclopedia. So I understand how people assumed that I am a black and white person. The obvious signs pointed to “yes.”
But internally, a war was taking place. If something was popular because “everyone wanted it,” it was the LAST thing that I wanted (my high school wardrobe attested to that). “Titanic” was THE movie of my teen years, and I finally watched it under duress and hated it. I reveled in the obscure, the different, the unique. I lived in dread of being like everyone else.
As I entered adulthood, this internal tendency became more external. A joy of my higher education was how music and literature are full of grey. My eclectic musical preferences (from country to rock orchestra, from Celtic to Classic, and a lot in between) befuddled those who saw me in a “Classical” box. I loved Shakespeare, Poe, Lucy Maud Montgomery, and contemporary fiction, and I was fascinated by those authors who struggled to balance darkness and light.
When I became a mother in the age of “this is the BEST way to do it,” the fight fueled by the internet’s flood of every parenting method available, my motto became “I do what works for me, all else be hanged.” I love information – I listen to advice – I don’t judge your methods – and I use what is useful and discard what is not. This has made my conversations with a spectrum of mothers with multitudes of methods both calm and fruitful. It is a hard, arduous road that we mothers tread. I will advise should one ask, but I will not lecture.
There are people in my life who will be in disbelief as they read this. Those who still perceive me as rigid and intractable. And in some ways, I am. I refuse to be nailed down. I fight against being locked into one space, one preference, one method of living this crazy and ever-changing merry-go-round of life. And don’t get me wrong – there are many absolutes in my life. Rules. Laws. Truths. I follow them strictly. But in everything else, in all matters of opinion or debatable fact, I see in grey scale.
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