Freak

All my life I've been called names or talked about in a disparaging way. Typically it's behind my back, though occasionally it's hysterical outbursts in front of me. It's really the only avenue left for those who wish to harm me, because I learned to defend myself physically. I know it comes from fear and self-loathing, but sometimes that doesn't make it easier to bear. It's particularly hard for me to grasp because I know there's nothing wrong with me. Seeing or hearing me incorrectly comes from the distorted senses of the beholder. That makes it all the more terrifying for me: these strong, visceral, and violent reactions from strangers, so-called friends, and even family members who should know me better. But they do not. To really know the object of ones' loathing would require honesty. To see me clearly, they would have to take a good look at themselves. For the mentally and emotionally disturbed, the truth is more than they can bear.

Of the many choice names I've been called since childhood, the one that stands out as the most oft-repeated is "freak". While I'm on the subject, let's go down the list: weirdo, witch (and the rhyming b-word), lazy, druggie (which oddly enough started in 7th grade, when I hadn't even kissed a boy yet), hippie, Alien, Martian, flat, flat-as-a-board, pancake, Olive Oyl (Popeye's skinny girlfriend), freckle-face, Pippi Longstocking (a crude, rube of a red-haired girl from children's book lore), and "boy" after my hair was shorn off for the summer, then broom stick because I was a late bloomer.

As I got older, the names got more insulting, becoming ethnic slurs and curses. My hair was a great target, and as I blossomed, so was my body. A relative told me one summer during my puberty, that some boys who called out to me to join them playing a board game, while on our way to the beach, only did so because I looked like a "slut" with black eyeliner. I was 13 years old. Of course, no help was extended to me in regards to its' application. A friend gave me a makeup palette as a birthday gift another year. She handed it over to me and said, "Marie, as much as I like purple, there are other colors out there." Her British stepmother took me to get our ears pierced at 15 years old. My mom had flatly refused to help me with such matters. She scorned my time in the bathroom as "primping", though in reality I was desperate to blend in, if even for a day, a luxury I've never had. Being average seemed like a blessing to me. I started reading beauty mags, teaching myself hair and make up, to survive school. I got my first manicure at 27, the day before I married. But I was marked as different, and I knew it. I felt like a monster.

If it wasn't my looks that got me in trouble, it was my brain. I didn't think like the other kids, and I knew it. I once stopped my parents cold by entering their bedroom and reciting a few lines from Shakespeare. I was about 7 or 8. My appetite for reading was voracious. I blew through books by Poe, Stephen King, sci-fi novels, and all the stupid period romances like Wuthering Heights, borrowed from my parents bookshelves. I joined book clubs at school and read in the library. Somewhere, out there, it had to be better than this insipid suburb we landed in. And it was. College was an epiphany in self-actualization for me. I was no longer told to "shut up" or looked at like I had three-heads. I could let my freak flag fly, as Jimi Hendrix once wrote and sang. I had been set free. I could let my hair down, and stretch my thoughts as far as they could go. It was so relaxing and luxurious. Leaving home had a profoundly beneficial effect on me. It taught me that freedom is worth dying for, because nothing compares to it.

I grew up and realized that I was atypical in the best ways: a ballet dancer instead of a ball player like other kids, an artist instead of some playground bullshitter, a reader and writer in lieu of the class gossip. I am unique, and not in the short-bus way I was mocked for. It's sad, but I've learned to adjust and protect myself from hatred and envy—hard, lonely lessons for anyone, let alone a little girl, one of the most vulnerable creatures on this planet. It's made me almost unbearably strong and resilient, which separates me from the pack even more. But being an "outsider" has become my greatest blessing, instead of the curse I'd been taught to believe. If it wasn't the hair on my head, it was my last name. If it wasn't my last name, it was my ethnicity. And if it wasn't my ethnicity or race, it was my religion. How fitting that today is Ash Wednesday, marked with a symbol we wear on our foreheads. I've finally embraced my path in life: by standing up for myself, I've accepted standing out. And how sweet it is!