I recently had one side of my head shaved and it feels good.

The thing about me and haircuts is that I like to shoo away stress by cutting a part of my hair. I don’t know if it’s normal (I really don’t care if it isn’t, anyway,) but I like to, once in a while, release unwanted emotions by getting a new hairstyle. A color or a cut, or maybe shave, or something, anything.

What I’ve learned the past year is that, my obsession with getting a new do every single time something majorly neurotic happens in my life is just as understandable as any other coping mechanism (that does not include hurting other people)  by anyone out there. I find that we are almost always so quick to judge others with how they handle things, people, changes, situations, etc, that it eats out the time we should rather just be using to understand and accept the complexities this world has. Or well, of those we are surrounded by.

I’d like to think that there is kindness in all the world. I see it in the responding eyes of the man on the street who just received kindness from a stranger with spare change. Or through the smile of an orphan who just found out that rejection, just as acceptance, is seasonal, and that sometimes, you just have to wait for your season. Or most recently, through the thriving soul of lover willing to love in spite and despite of all the unloving.

It is not right, it is not wrong, it’s just different. We are all sometimes judged by how different we are from one another. But that doesn’t mean different is always wrong - neither is it always right - just… well… different. We just have to know that disparity is something that doesn’t necessarily need to be understood, or liked, or patronized, or celebrated, or looked down upon - it just needs to be accepted.

So please, if you are like me who constantly feel like you need to apologize for being different - for having a different opinion, for wanting different things, for not liking the same fashion, for not wanting to walk on the same path as others, - please, stop. As long as you are different in the sense that you do not hurt others around you, as long as you have people who love you for all that you are and as long as you know in your heart that what really matters is when it comes down to you and your Maker, then go ahead and continue being who you are.

Stop apologizing to people who ridicule your being; and when you find yourself being unkind to others, remember that all are fighting different, hard battles. Different is beautiful, we are beautifully and wonderfully made.