For as long as I can remember, something that always touched my soul was music.  There are countless lyrics that if I didn’t know any better, were written based on situations throughout my life.  And many situations there have been !  I take full responsibility for my bad decisions, just lessons learned, unfortunately sometimes the second or third time around.

Diverse does not begin to describe my taste in music.  All is separated into categories.  “Cleaning”, “dark”, “dance”, you name it.  I have a folder for each mood, task or activity.  But all in all, we are all partial to one.   My taste seems to always gravitate back to any Kid Rock song.  His music and lyrics seem to fit into any category or mood.  “Cold and Empty” I heard for the first time, two years ago when my world fell apart, absolutely destroying me.

I truly don’t think there is anything worse then being judged by someone based on appearance or lack of similarity or interests.  Especially not the person you thought you were closest too, and the one person you least expected it from.  Imagine what the world would be like if we all looked the same, or thought the same.  Boring does not even begin to cover it.

There has never been a point in my life where I felt comfortable, felt I belong or fit in, and I didn’t know why.  Shortly after leaving home, I was still trying my best to establish my own identity, and not be who someone else wanted me to be.  One that, I feel, is not readily accepted by many.

Being in real estate for 14 years, the heels, dresses, skirts, just covered up the real me, and left me extremely unhappy.  Every tattoo or piercing I got could be covered up, and come the the weekends, I was temporarily allowed to be me.  then we moved on to the medical field, eventually teaching the program at a local college.  This was the first job I’ve had since 16 years old that I truly loved, however there was still this person screaming to get out and stay out.  There was always an appearance and an example to be set.

Now don’t get me wrong, I agree that certain jobs require a certain appearance, but I can’t think of a better example to set then “be yourself.”  This has cost me relationships, friendships, jobs, family, but also brought me true happiness in my soul, and I could not ask for more.

Being that it has been done to me my whole life, in spite of my mistakes, bad decisions, one thing I can say with certainty, is I will at any time comfortably stand before God and tell Him, I do not judge people.  That’s His job, and how arrogant of ANYONE to think they can do His job.  If people looked past the appearance, they would find a person that would go to the moon and back a million times, day or night.

I look at it this way.  With the countless tattoos, piercings and brutally honest to a fault attitude, if someone sees the heart, they have a friend for life.  If they can’t, they are nobody I would associate with anyway.

Even though I was terminated from the instructor job, which crushed me, there is always light at the end of the tunnel.  I attended the graduation ceremony anyway, and a former coworker approached me with some not so nice comments about “shrapnel” and going through an identity crisis.

My answer:  I’ve been going through an identity crisis for 43 years.

I can finally be me and am more than “Happy to be Misunderstood”