quirkyalone

Yo. I'll play this. I'm not one to join a cause or a movement ('cept demonstrations for human rights, reproductive rights, and against war-mongering; I've steel-toothed and ably managed my claustrophobic/agoraphobic tendencies to stand and march and holler when the cause is greater than my puerile neuroses), but somewhere in the past couple of months, I've hit upon this site, and I'll say the label fits: quirkyalone, that's me.

We are, as defined, not likely to join any group, or blog, or buy a book to celebrate our solidarity (I'll leave it to you to insert the appropriate Groucho Marx joke here). But I'll admit a certain level of reassurance upon discovering this site and that there's a quirky community for quirky folks like me. Even if I don't join up.

Quirky. Even the word looks weird. Quirky. Quirkyalone. Yeah. Quirkyalone. That's me.

In my early-twenties, when I started to come into "my own," I was merely "peculiar."

As a teenager, I wasn't strange at all. I was just a teenager. We're all strange at that age. And during college, well, I traveled all over the map of (ab)normalcy, and any label upon me would have stuck as well as a post-it.

After college, I made friends with a woman about ten years my senior. How we jibed, I'm not sure, but we did. Ballgames. Beers at bars. Dinners out or at our respective homes. She found me a curiosity, and I was just happy to have a friend in town after all my college-mates had graduated and moved on. She pegged me with the "peculiar" tag, in response, I think, to my choice of footwear (practical and rugged soled) and my penchant for smoking on the street (her mother deemed that behavior most unladylike and although my friend engaged in a number of activities her mother would have frowned upon, she followed this one rule).

Me? I've never worried about "ladylike." I came out as a feminist during college, though I walked the walk before I talked the talk. Whether or not I was ladylike wasn't ever a worry. I knew I was a woman. Even when I still had my babyfat.

I come upon quirkyalone honestly, and it's not because I'm an only child - though that's no doubt part of it. My parents are also quirkyalones, and they're both spawns of multi-child families. My Dad is one of three. Mom is (was) one of six. But despite (or because of) the riotous, chaotic, always-something-going-on households, my parents found themselves cherishing and prioritizing their alone time. Amidst the chaos - and often being over-looked - they learned to take care of and entertain themselves.

My father is the youngest of three sons, raised by a single mother, and was often left to look after himself. My mother, a middle-child in the six kids, was lost as well. She's told me stories about majorette tournaments, when she'd done well, but no one from the family was there to see it. Her heartbreak was palpable even after all the years.

As adults, my parents continued to pursue their separate, private interests. My mom was an ice skater and took lessons for a number of years. She also painted and bowled. My Dad is a grease-monkey and carpenter and handy with every kind of power tool imaginable. They were both skiers for a spell.

I learned none of this. I wasn't part of it, except for sitting on the sidelines (and pitching the occasional fit - I was young, and probably tired). Their interests weren't my interests because they were THEIR interests and there was no effort to bring me in. I learned early how to entertain myself (books, mostly), and felt no slight when they went off to do their own thing. It only became a problem later, when I wanted them to be interested in MY interests (you know, for validation and stuff, 'cause us teenagers, we need that kind of stuff), and I generally got a post hoc okay. I was good as long as I didn't get pregnant or arrested, but that's a short bar to raise. It was an easy leap over and off to college.

Now, many years later, post-marriage, and two years single, I've come to embrace the "alone" part of the sobriquet as much as the "quirky." I accepted the quirky a long time ago; the dawning came when I was 24, back on Long Island, after college, heartbroken and wondering about prospects. A good male friend told me that while most women are "vanilla" - and a lot of men like vanilla - I was "peanut butter raspberry nut crunch," and while not everyone likes this particular - this peculiar - flavor, there are folks out there who just LOVE it. And I shouldn't scale back to meet other people's tastes. Good advice, I think. Just be yourself, in other words.

And me, myself, and I, we're alone. But not lonely. That's the quirk part of the quirkyalone. I like my company. I can entertain myself. But, damn, I sure do wish I didn't need to make a long distance phone call to talk to a good friend.