Letter From an Aging Black Sheep...

Dear Flock,

I wanted to write to you today to say I get it now. I understand a few things. I've figured it out. See I've spent my whole life thinking you hated me. That my very existence was a problem. That what you would like to do more than anything in the world was to shear my coat and make me look just like the rest of you. And that because, even under my coat, I was different you hated me.

Now that I'm older. And I'd like to think wiser I see that it was never me that you hated. Sure you hated that I was there. Yes, you hated that I was so unwilling to be shorn. And when shorn I was unwilling to wear your coat. But you didn't really hate me.

You hated that I showed you a different possibility.

Without me you could say, "It's just the way I was raised." or "We are who we are. That's all that we can be." But then I came along and I was raised the same way. I was taught the same things. I was steeped in the same life. And yet...

Without me you had the comfort of everything being the same. There were no jagged edges that didn't quite fit. Everything was smooth because no one thought it could be another way. No one ever thought to turn left down the road you always turned right on. No one ever even considered there was another way to go. Because everyone was raised the same. Everyone was the same. And yet...

When I wasn't the same you took comfort in the fact that eventually I would be. Everyone comes back to the same flock. There is comfort in ritual. In the collective. In knowing that every where you turned, everyone you talked to would tell you the same thing. That you were right. And yet...

When I would say, "But what about..." I was shut down. "You don't know everything so stop." When I would argue, "I know! I know I don't know everything, I want to know more!" You would say, "Stop. You know what you need to know." And yet...

So now I look back and I realize that you acted like you hated me because it was easier than hating yourself.  It was easier to say that I was a know it all instead of wondering why you weren't more curious. It was easier to dismiss me as wrong than to consider I was right. Because I made a different choice I showed you that you could have as well. I showed you that it didn't matter how you were raised, what everyone else said, what the expectations were, you could turn left instead of right. And you didn't like that.

It was easier to say, "She's the black sheep of the family" instead of saying, "Maybe we don't all have to be the same."

And I think the most unforgivable part to you is that I'm not sorry. You wish for contrite when I give you confident. You want me to miss the shearing and I revel in my skin. You want me to admit it was a mistake because then you would have been right all along. And yet...

So now I understand. I'm the black sheep. I'm the problem. I'm the issue. Because if I wasn't then it would have to be you.

And yet...

I'm happy.
And I wish you were too.

Signed,
The Black Sheep