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As inspired after reading: It’s Okay to have a Depth that Scares the F*cking Sh*t out of People.
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To myself and the ones who are “too much”:
Those voices in your head are liars, you know.
For far too long they’ve whispered at every “overshare” that it was “too much information.” That every accommodation was “too much rope.” That every expressed need was “too demanding.”
For far too long, you have let yourself believe that you are a pushover when you bend, and yet high-maintenance when you express your basic emotional needs and tangible desires.
Tell me, when did you begin to believe these lies?
Was it when you were a child and he left? A tween when your friends cast you out? A young adult when scorned for not following the grain of seeking love and first kisses, but instead, expression and explorations of the soul?
I know sometimes—often—you feel all alone despite the crowded room. Not enough when all alone, and still too much to handle with everyone else.
Too sexual. Too serious. Too deep. Too awkward. Looking just a little too long, or not observant enough. Too slow at work, too distracted by the small things that “no one else” is. Too in the middle at everything else that “matters.”
Maybe just too middle to matter.
I remember when your eyes feasted on that card—the one with the cartoon avocado apologizing to the burrito for being “so extra.”
How your heart related to the green little guy with the hardsoft shell as you let out a little chortle and felt a lot understood. How appropriate that it would apologize for being itself?
What you didn’t see then, and what you sometimes fail to see, now, is that there is a reason that avocado is extra.
It has no reason to apologize. You have no reason to apologize.
It is time you own your extra.
You are the unique taste whose hearts only some can afford to savor.
You are neutrality accented with bursts of the “too much” flavors that make you—the perfect batch for that certain tongue—worth searching for.
Someone will want to package you and ship you off to everyone they know. Someone will want to see your chunky bits of bitter, burning onion, and then still close their eyes to taste the sweet combination of everything you are.
But, too, some will buy you for less than others pay for your “worth.” And it is this that you must disallow. Not your vulnerability, not your abundance of care.
No. It is time you own your extra.
For far too long you have allowed yourself to be spread thin, to blend in with dime-a-dozen beans, or let those more fiery take the show.
For far too long you have allowed yourself to believe you’re a 50-cent purchase while your substance earns $2.50.
I’ll say it again: there’s a reason avocado is extra.
You are the damn show.
In a world so full of apathy, you’re the “too emotional” that reminds it is okay to feel at all.
In a world full of fast, you’re the “too slow” that many crave.
In a world full of political correctness, you’re the “too awkward” that sets others just a little more free.
Yes. It is time you own your extra.
Your loud, your laugh-at-everything, your always-on-the-go and can’t-sit-still.
It is time you own that too much curiosity that others claim kills the cat. Your exploration can bring new movement to our world’s too-still minds. Your too-still and quiet can bring new calm to our bustling lives and whipping tongues.
It is time you own your extra—whatever it is.
Your ability to sense what is ahead and request action in advance; that over-preparedness and too much planning. Or, too, the excess impulsivity.
It is time you own your extra weight that gives a little more to squeeze. Time to own that appetite for the delicious things in life, and living itself. And too, it is time you own your too skinny bones that remain no matter the amount that you feast.
Yes, you may be extra, my dear; you may feature all the extra add-on toppings that a person could possibly have. And that’s why you’re worth so much more than what you’re settling for.
It is those who are extra who earn lives worth cliché descriptions:
You deserve the world, to be on top of it, to consume the whole damn oyster that is yours. You’re the salt of the earth and have the heart in spades. You’re a unicorn, if it suits your fancy, for whom life could be one big fairy tale.
But first, my dear, you need to slay your dragons—the villains of mediocrity and the thought that it is what you are meant to be and achieve; the thought that your extra somehow makes you less.
Take up your sword. It is time you own your extra.
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