Different...

Someone once explained me to me perfectly...

"You're an artist, you feel things differently from other people... You're an artist, you see things differently from other people... You're an artist, you say things differently from other people... You are an artist... you are different from other people."

Everyone is different, we all have our unique little quirks and it just takes stopping to understand how someone is to understand them... usually... Some days not even my best friend understands what I am saying. I had the hardest time understanding, and accepting it when people would tell me I didn't say things like normal people do. It felt like a harsh criticism when they would tell me I didn't think or see things like most people. Being told continually that you aren't normal takes a definite toll on one's pride, and self-esteem eventually. Given the years I've accepted who I am, and learned to love the way I am, and how I am... but there are days when you question, and when it just become such a frustration being so different, and being reminded at the most infuriating times that you are so different from other people. Take for example the repentence process. I had a friend that completed the repentence process, and fulfilled the necessary requirements beyond anyones expectations. They sent in a request for a church activity and recieved a negative response because of the original mistake... That didn't make any sense to me. My friend had repented, and was forgiven... therfore it was as if the mistake had never been made in the eyes of the Lord, so who were we to hold that against their record!? That seemed to me a double standard, or a hypocrisy of you will. It took me a while to understand that though everyone involved knew that mistake wouldn't be made again, the elders in charge weren't aware of that and had no way to prove it. We are human and that is our saving grace, but as such error often... I just had to accept it because my 'God-like' perception to quote my bishop; while it is correct... it isn't the way most people think. Among all of my adventures so far this summer I have enjoyed a lot of silence, and me time. When you're lying in the dead of night, surrounded by nothing, hearing nothing... it's beautiful because you feel everything. In those moments where it felt as if time had just stopped I re-lived my entire childhood, my teen years, and my while short... but still there... adult life. Some of my most favorite memories where played like a favorite disney tape; but I was also able to remember things I had forgotten. I thought about everything, asked all the why and what-if questions. I disected myself, my thought process, and the way I do things... and I realized once again, I am an artist... and as an artist, I feel things differently from other people. As an artist I see things differently from other people, and as an artist I say things differently from other people... I am an artist, and I am different from most people...