Do you understand why teenagers say that?
Because, let me tell you a thing:
When I was a teenager, I envied people who were able to say that, who were able to take “being random” as a part of their identity.
“Being random” is the slow, gentle, acceptable way to begin to distance yourself from the absolutely suffocating forces of Being Normal and Being Cool.
I wish I knew, ro even knew where to start looking, to see if this is a thing recognized by psychologists, but from what I’ve experienced: Children/teens between certain ages are consumed by labelling everything as appropriate or inappropriate. And it gets very binary, and every small detail becomes equally essential to get right, and having consensus with the people around you is very imporant. Your attention is on everything you do, to see if it’s right, to see if the people around you do it the same way, to see what they think of you doing it. “Being random” is how you break away from that mindset. It’s how you start to do things because you want to do them, even if they aren’t part of what you’re Supposed To Do.
So, yeah, I don’t dismiss people who say that they’re oh so random. What they mean is “I’m beginning to realize that there’s more to life than being just like the cool kids,” and that’s really important. It may be an awkward-looking spot to be in, when seen from the outside, but it’s a good thing.
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I didn’t feel like I could get away with it. I didn’t get to call my deviation from the norm “being random”. Everyone around me had already labelled it as “being weird”, which was worthy of mockery. “Random” is how you get to be different and have it seen as being a unique, independent person, instead of a person who is wrong. And I couldn’t get to that.
—–
The difference between Sparkly and me is she got called wrong, and always thought she could prove she was normal if she had the chance. I got called wrong and I knew I could never be normal enough. I wanted a chance to prove I was still human.
Some Open Space 