(Un)Conventional

Poetic Reflection of Otherness

A Quick Note

As the Nodes are on the precipice of changing hands into Aquarius and Leo, I felt it appropriate to share some poetic thoughts and reflections on themes of this new nodal axis. Questions around love, enoughness, worth, doubt, convention, tradition, rebellion, and othering. This reflection is something that I, and I think, so many of us know. A collective feeling of isolation. How funny (or maybe not) it is that we so honestly feel alone in something that many of us experience. But, I won’t drone on here. Instead, I will just share what has been sitting in my Notes app. And as always, thank you for reading.

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(Un)conventional

Without a doubt, I’ve never been conventional. Never fit in. Never accepted. Always existing outside of the confines of rigidity and traditionalism. My queerness, my “look”, my humor, my personality, my body, all not to standard, not to code. Like a reject model in the line up, marked with a “no pass” on quality control.

And it’s true. I’ve never been able to pass the inspection of life. Always reminded of why I am different and not deserving. It doesn’t help that I’ve never followed the rules once in my life — and maybe not on purpose but perhaps by fate and by design.

I have long seen my unconventional self as a liability. I mean how could I not? When society has constantly told me that I was not enough. Not man enough. Not straight enough. Not acceptable enough. Not smart enough. Not perfect enough. And I had to accept that. I had to swallow the bitter pill whole as if it was candy that I couldn’t wait to eat. But in the vein of not being enough, I didn’t even think I was enough to accept it.

So, I thought if I could shrink myself, I would finally taste this “enough”. I would be able to fly under the radar. To be so small that I could become invisible. But there was also, much to my chagrin, such thing as not small enough, too. Because here’s the reality, being unconventional means you attract attention even you aim to evade it. But I am uncomfortable with attention. I never asked for it. I never wanted to be seen. To be heard. I just wanted to disappear. Because disappearance meant freedom. Unbound by expectation or scrutiny.

If I could be free, I could finally be at peace, right?

But what if I have been wrong this whole time? What if freedom isn’t in disappearance? What if it is in choosing existence?

They say what sets us apart makes us beautiful, but at what point can I believe that? When does esteem finally settle into the skin, the veins, the bones? When can I know what it means to own myself wholly and completely?

I know I am not meant to fit in, it’s been clear my whole life. So perhaps embracing that will finally give me the (self) worth I crave. Perhaps knowing that the truth of being a reject will never change can make me more assured. Perhaps that embodying my otherness is what will set me free more than the desire to shrink away from it.

And maybe that is all I really need. Not to avoid being unconventional but instead root myself in it like a redwood and stand tall in the magnificence of self-honesty — knowing that the most unconventional thing I could do is to just be or maybe finally give myself the love to just be.

And how I long for that. I crave to love myself the way I know I deserve, the way I have never been loved before, in my disastrous entirety and holy divine body.

And there lies freedom.

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I am sending you love wherever you are, however you are. Perfect to be writing and sending this as the Moon and Chiron join hands too.

In case you need a pick-me-up, try reflecting on my Jupiter in Leo affirmations. <3

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