A Bit Odd

 I have always been a bit odd. I don't fit into a lot of boxes. In elementary school, I was the quiet kid that was older and bigger than most of the other kids. As I teenager, I was one of the few people I knew with divorced parents, and I was definitely the only person who had a mother in a relationship with a woman. (It was the 90s. The world was different.) As an adult, I have always been socially awkward and constantly wondering if someone was being nice to me because they actually cared of if they were just being fake. (I have been around so many fake people that I have gotten better at figuring this out quicker.) This made social situations hard for most of my life, but I am caring less and less over the past 5 or 6 years. 

I sit at home working Monday through Friday with little interaction with the outside world during working hours. This has caused me to feel like I'm going crazy more than once. I am constantly on the lookout for things that may indicate I'm mentally ill like my mother. So far, I have only been diagnosed with situational depression. After a while of my husband doing his best to get me out of the house, I started finding my own ways to interact with other people, and I was determined to not change for anyone. 

I joined a virtual book club a few years ago that fizzled out before we finished discussing the first book. (We were reading one chapter a week and discussing it.) The book chosen made me think about myself and my habits differently and helped me embrace the things that made me different. I started knitting and crocheting in church that summer. You know what happened? People started asking me what I was making and complimenting me on my work. There have since been other people, adults and children, knitting and crocheting at church. I wasn't as weird as I thought with this desire. 

About a year later, I started working in the temple. I was worried that I would struggle to learn the things I needed to learn. I was worried that being a divorced and remarried person would make me stand out. I was worried that I would struggle with social situations. None of this was a problem. I learned at the same pace as the other ladies who started around the same time. There are other women who have been divorced and remarried. No one cares that I say odd stuff and talk about death more than the average person. I am accepted and have made friends. 

Doing magic with children has really taken me out of my comfort zone, but kids don't care. They just want to learn magic and play. I have said it many times and feel it even more now that my kids are all grown up: little kids are amazing! I love how even the smallest things are exciting and new to them. Best of all, they just see me as an old lady teaching them magic and have no other judgements of me. 

I have also joined a book club at my local library. When I did this, I worried that the books I like would be too odd for them. It's not. Not everyone likes the same genres, and no one seems to judge others for their likes and dislikes. We are all reading the same book at the same time and expanding our likes and dislikes together. It doesn't matter that I don't know as many literary terms. I just don't talk when they talk about those parts of the books. I will probably understand and be able to talk that way after a few months. For now, I am just another person in the group that has read the book and has opinions.

I know that I make choices that are odd sometimes, and I will continue to do so. The thing is, I don't care anymore. If you don't like my garden in my front yard, don't look at it. If you don't like that I read non-Fiction every morning, that's ok because you aren't the one reading it. If the fact that I have a Barbie display in my bedroom puts you off in some way, who cares? It makes me happy. If you don't like that I'm religious, it doesn't bother me. I will respect your beliefs as long as you respect mine. You don't like that I am politically more in the middle and won't choose who or what I vote for without research? Oh, well. I am don't changing who I am to appease other people. I am different, but everyone should be different. We weren't made to be the exact some. That would make for a very boring existance. 

Magic Money

I have accrued more debt than I want to admit since the pandemic. It's not as much as some people have confessed to, but it is more than I am comfortable having. This debt doesn't count the car or house. It also doesn't include Chad's student loans. (Chad and I have been paying car payments and his student loans through an account that only pulls money from his paychecks for most of our marriage, and that will continue for the foreseeable future.) I am talking about credit cards in only my name. Cards that have been used to pay for trips, clothing, Noel's dental work, and who knows what else. At the beginning of the year, I finally opened my eyes to what I had been doing and calculated how much I owed and how much I paid in just minimum payments. I was shocked! I knew that we would be doing better financially if I hadn't done this, so I prayed for a way to attack this debt. 

During one of my shifts at the temple last month, I took advantage of the quiet moments to pray for guidance. The thought that I had broken something with this debt was dominating my thoughts. As I sat in relative silence, the thought that I should work for my bishop came to my mind. I knew he had started a business teaching kids magic after school and during the summer, but I didn't think he would hire someone for this. I thought that I was crazy for even considering this. I told myself that maybe I should work for his sister who owns a pickleball facility, but I didn't really want to have to drive that far to just make a bit of money to pay off debt. I tried to put it out of my mind and think of other part-time jobs that I could work around my full-time job and the work I do in the temple. (I don't get paid to work in the temple.) A week after I felt prompted to ask the bishop for a job, he and his wife both posted that he was hiring for after school clubs. I knew this was a sign that I needed to do this. I applied right away and was hired the next day. 

Now, I get to learn and teach magic to elementary school kids. It is so much fun! It doesn't even feel like a job! I couldn't have asked for a better way to pay off bills and work in the public. I can't believe I am so lucky to have this job!