So today I was in English class and I don't really remember what exactly made me think of this but all of the sudden it was in my head. How we're always defining people, how quickly we peg a person as this or that, how we box people in so soon after meeting them - or even just seeing them.
And then I thought how cleanly I fit into those boxes people are always put into. How nicely others can peg me, how accurately they can judge me. I am the quiet one, I am the smart one, I am the bookworm, I am the nice one, I am the girl next door. And I wonder: does this make me better or worse? Why aren't I one of those people who dispels all stereotypes and refuses to fit cleanly into the boxes they are shoved? And would it be better or worse if I were like that?
I was in a math class in tenth grade, Geometry. Usually I'm good at math but that class really took it out of me. It would have helped, of course, if the teacher had known how to teach, but whatever. Since about the ninth grade I've had a habit of getting really crappy math teachers. Anyways, it was in that class, after getting a C on the test, that the guy next to me made the following observation. He said, "You're one of those people who looks smarter than you are." Gee, thanks. I could have followed that twisted logic and decided that he meant I was both stupid and ugly, but instead I just sat there. Absorbing the words. Not the not-smart part, I didn't care too much about that seeing as how he wasn't exactly someone to talk. But the other part. The looking-smart part.
Brown hair.
Brown eyes.
Skinny.
Plain.
He was right about part of it at least - I do look smart. The fact that I almost always have a book in my hand doesn't exactly dispel the notion either.
And then I started thinking how everything I am can be fit, so nicely, into a box. Smart. Plain. Bookworm. Quiet. Overachiever. Nice. Spiritual. Polite. The whole big-sister/little-mother complex, depending on how you view it. They all fit into boxes, so nice and tidy. I see them lined up in rows in my mind, like the orgizational baskets my mom has in the pantry.
Then I thought: is it this that makes me blend, makes me invisible, makes me fade into the background? Is it because everyone sees me so well that they don't even have to look, don't have to notice? Is there any part of me that DOESN'T fit into a box?
So you guys tell me: is there anything about me, any facet, that doesn't fit nicely into that box? Am I at all different, unique, to use Dani's word... extraordinary?