My Real Place in Society…

Am I the only person who has ever thought it unfair that one does not have any say in what her “place in society” is? Surely I am not alone in asking myself that question. My physical place in society does not reflect who I am at all. To begin with, I am a democrat living in north eastern Alabama. Which means I try not to talk to anyone at all come election year and become extremely aggravated with people that vote according to ONE issue like whether or not the candidate stated if he was for or against abortion. I grew up in a small city with a population barely pushing 2,700. It is not fair to me, because in this said city I faced many hardships growing up all because of being “different” but what makes someone different? I do not approve of the word “weird”  because I do not think anyone should be called that. I know what it feels like to be completely set aside from the rest of my peers simply because of this word. By now you may be wondering what it is about me that makes me “different” or ::shiver:: “weird” well I am a gothic novelist and I like scary movies, I hate chick flicks and I am a Christian BUT I am also a democrat. I also believe in accepting people and embracing others’ oddities. Now I know this is not much, but to the city I live in I might as well have been a witch burned at the stake in Salem, Massachusetts in the 1690’s.  I am not talking down on my friends because I do have wonderful friends, that does not mean it was easy for me to get them neither does it mean that I am fully happy with my social life. I work at a pharmacy, I hate it. I hate working as a technician but I have to because I can make a decent amount of money doing it, though my hatred has lightened since my old boss from a grocery store I used to work at now manages the grocery store I work at now. I often feel as if my thoughts are wasted whenever I try to share them because I live in an area of the world (I am NOT dissing the south, only the area I live in) where intelligence is misunderstood. Whenever I try to say something to someone that expresses my intelligence I am looked at as if I should not have opened my mouth at all. Wonderful.

If I could pick my own place in society it would be in a city, preferably a city on the beach. My friends, well I would want to still have some of the friends I do now. In this city, I would like to run with a pack of outspoken , witty males, maybe one or two girls but I really can not handle too many females in my life because often they bring entirely too much drama. So I try not to make too many female friends.  Maybe this pack would be Italian, any Italian I have ever met I have gotten along with very well, or maybe a Hungarian as they too are eccentric people. My job? Well a cushy office job of course, working my way through college as an editor’s “go-for” would be great. I can see myself running errands like mailing things, licking envelops, taking out the trash…all those petty things but I would be just fine doing these errands just so I could peer over the editor’s shoulder occasionally and watch him or her vigorously editing, writing ,reading, and all the while growling over deadlines. I would make small talk with the editor and learn inside tricks to the trade of editing and possibly make some useful contacts.

My social life, walking the busy streets with my pack, there would be five of us in all. Three boys, me and another girl. There would be no sexual tension because I would still have my same boyfriend and the other girl would be in a relationship separate from the pack.  We would have our fun by shopping at all the eclectic stores and would make nice with the owners. We’d hang out a couple of music shops and score a few free sampler cds every now and then. Hanging out at the beach would occur every weekend, we’d pick up one of those hotdogs smothered in cheese, the kind only sold at carnivals and boardwalks and we would chow down while hanging sitting in the sand. There would be a band shell near by where we would indulge in a concert every now and then. There would be one store in particular that would make me happy as can be, there would be an endless supply of jewelry (cross necklaces and catholic jewelry mainly) that I would not be able to get enough of and ample clothing that drove me wild. I would dress the way I want to, the way I’ve always wanted to. Vintage-y, rustic clothes that helped people pick me out a crowd. For once, I would LOOK like a novelist. I would somehow be able to fix my hair like Ive always wanted to also, kind of crinkly, mainly wavy. The best of all–I would never feel bad about being me. Not that I am ashamed of myself now, but for those unfamiliar with my native land, people do not like people that are unique. It is frowned upon and results in constant persecution. I am not naive , I know that I would still deal with some of this in this hypothetical life. But I just can’t see how it could be worse than where I am now, or even match it.

In a nut shell–I feel as if my true identity is lost, smothered in my existence in this small, narrow-minded city.