Huh, that’s weird.

“We have defined weird as a tool to force people toward the center…but the center is boring. When you care, you care by going away from the center.” ~Seth Godin

I completed Seth Godin’s AltMBA earlier this year, and it was an incredibly important four-week sprinting marathon of work, learning and connecting. Because I took that class, I am now part of this massive, dynamic, kind of overwhelming and far-reaching online community. And while I am still in the exploratory phase of learning about the site, I really love the opportunities I have already taken advantage of and the people I am starting to feel a real connection to because of it.

And then there are the regular video prompts from Seth.

Today, he asks, “What would your life be like if you chose to be more weird? If you chose to be more weird for the people who are seeking something that matters to them?”

I love this prompt because I have always been weird.

I am a child of the late 1980s, but I never used a curling iron or had a perm, and I am proud to say that I did not contribute to the ozone depletion because I never wore hair spray. Weird.

I have a theatre degree but finished college a virgin (despite having boyfriends), can count on one finger the amount of times I was drunk in those 3 1/2 years and have never smoked marijuana. Weird.

I didn’t get a full-time job until I was 37, and I really only took that one because the job description implied it could maybe be part-time. I always knew I was not a 9-5, cubicle type person. Weird.

I’ve (almost) dated more non-American than American boys and men, and, of course, I married one, too. Russia. Spain. Italy. Ireland by way of England. Weird.

I have always been comfortable revealing my warts, my flaws, my imperfections and my struggles. Always. For heaven’s sake, my Senior capstone project was a one-woman play I wrote called The Melancholic Virgin. Doesn’t leave a lot to the imagination, does it? Weird.

I’ve always been feisty, acerbic, critical and highly opinionated, but I’ve also always been able to cry at commercials or all kinds of odd things I find highly touching. Don’t even get me started on John Krasinski’s Some Good News segments. There’s a lot (a whole lot!) of ugly crying going on through each of those. And the most recent one was about baseball for cripes’ sake! I hate baseball. Weird. And for much of America, Weird (borderline blasphemous) about the baseball emotion as well.

So it’s not surprising that I am doing the work I am doing these days on this blog and beyond. Because maybe the weirdest thing about me is that I am deeply committed to sharing my story, significant failures and all, in an effort to help other people feel ok about their lives, to find solace in not being alone and to see that we can be flawed, we can fall to our knees, we can be derailed and still get back up. And not just back up to sadly soldier on, but back up to rise and fly. Back up to be the outstanding humans we are all meant to be. Back up to step into our greatness.

Now if that’s not weird, I don’t know what is.

Bring on the weird.