How I See Things: Dasher and Dancer and Prancer...

So, yesterday I was thinking about a moment I had with my current therapist, early on. I was telling her about a bully incident I had at work. My coworker who pretended she was my all-knowing boss used to bully me like crazy. And it drove me crazy. Everyone else there at the job liked me or loved me or was genuinely friendly with me at least.

And this co-worker was so cruel, I had to leave the job. I couldn't handle it. I could never understand what I did to get on her bad side. I did my job. I showed up on time. I took care of things when issues came up. My managers all liked me. But this co-worker was constantly criticizing every little thing I did.

My therapist told me, "Well, Jodi, you're different."

Um, ok? (For purposes of this blog, which I hadn't started when she told me this, I see things differently. I just do. As I am typing this, I literally see the words double and also a shadow and a highlight of the words, surrounding the words. I'm probably just not focusing on the words like I am being taught to in vision therapy; but that's for another blog post in the future.)

She told me that in the wild, if an animal is "different," like a hen in a hen house, the other hens will come around and pick on the hen that is different. She told me some people absolutely cannot tolerate people who are different, so they pick on them incessantly. My therapist basically told me that this person (and others before her) just pick pick pick pick, because they see something different and it bothers them. They don't know how to step back and be okay with something out of the typical.

I was thinking about this in relation to something else yesterday (I can't remember what now), and then all of a sudden, that song from the Claymation version of Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer came in to my head - "we're a couple of mis-fits, not a couple of nit wits. What's the matter with mis-fits? Why don't we fit in?"

It's sung by Rudolf and an elf who wants to be a dentist instead of a toy maker. Come to think of it, the modern Christmas movie called "Elf" has a misfit too - Will Farrell doesn't fit in as an Elf (he is too tall and makes toys too slowly), and he doesn't fit in as a human (that is, until he finds his niche. by telling his story to children).

I think there are a lot of children's stories about misfits. Like the Ugly Duckling story; the baby "not a duck" turned out to be a swan.

As I sang that song and heard the lyrics over and over in my head "we're a couple of misfits, not a couple of nitwits...." I suddenly realized that I am a misfit. I have always been a misfit. It's part of who I am. I'm okay with that, until I get bullied for it. I see things differently. Vincent Van Gogh saw things differently. I need to gather my thoughts and words to explain why I look at all of Vincent Van Gogh's work and think: "of COURSE he painted it that way! That's what it looks like!" Mind you, I don't see the Pablo Picasso did. Not the cubism. But I definitely see the Impressionist way that Van Gogh saw.

I got to thinking about how members of my family are also misfits or have been misfits in their lifetime. I think there are so many of us! And then, I realized that the entire story of Rudolf. it's a story of a misfit. I mean, duh. It's obvious now that I have realized it. But I didn't realize it until I was singing that song over and over in my head yesterday, pondering the word "misfit."

The cool thing about a misfit is that IF their specific talent can be found, they can actually bring about a LOT of good, that people couldn't have expected. Like Vincent Van Gogh. Rudolf's nose "shone so bright" that he was able to lead Santa's sleigh.

Pondering all of this, and I was suddenly grateful for the story of Rudolf. I wonder how many kids and adults and humans it has helped over the years, to be ok with being a misfit. I know it brought me a kind of comfort and joy yesterday, to realize that there are famous, well-known stories about misfits who figure out how they can fit in & do miraculous things.