Running

Running. Slowly, quickly, it does not matter. Just running. Running away from the ordinary and the expected; running towards difference and originality. The most prevalent goal of my high school career has been to avoid the popular and the commonplace. I have made a point of conforming to my own standards. Why make myself unhappy trying to be someone else’s version of happy? In the dreams that come, I do not want to look down upon my shoelaces and realize they are as gray as everyone else’s.

What is everyone else not wearing? Where is everyone else not shopping? What is everyone else not reading? What will be the next trend? Those are fundamental questions I ask myself everyday. If they cannot be answered, I’m lost. I panic. I begin having dreams where everyone looks the same. Thus, I put on my tennis shoes and run.

However, it must be clear that this running does not stem from fear. I do not fear that I will show up at school wearing the same shirt as someone else. I merely do everything possible to avoid such an event. Why look the same when I can be different? The world is filled with billions of possibilities and opportunities for everyone to be unique, and yet everyone strives to be the same. I don’t understand.

This aversion to ordinary, to conformity, has no definite origin. Perhaps it began with family vacations to museums and castles. Perhaps it began with the reading of histories of victory and struggle in foreign cities. Maybe it even began with watching the successes of other family members. Call it a genetic defect. I wish I knew. I do know, however, that it has carried into all aspects of my life. I look at the best seller lists in the Sunday New York Times and make sure I read those books last. I watch brand labels on shirts at school and avoid purchasing the most common brands as much as possible. Passing straight over magazines like Cosmo and Seventeen, I look for magazines with content that has nothing to do with fashion or make-up or news. I quit listening to top forty radio stations nearly three years ago.

I do have to point out, however, that my desire to be different is not a desire to stand out in a crowd. I do not need to be outgoing. I do not have to be an extrovert. I do not mind if I am not noticed when I walk into a room and forgotten when I leave. I am quite content to sit in a class and never contribute to the conversation, though I realize that I cannot always be that way. My first impression on those who do not know me means absolutely nothing to me. What matters, is that when I befriend someone, that person will quickly realize, as I slowly reveal my character to her, that I am not like all of her other friends. After twelve years of attending school with the same people, I want to still be a surprise on the day I graduate. That’s what avoiding ordinary means to me.

It cannot be denied that I have missed many opportunities by fleeing the established and the customary. It has made my circle of friends considerably small. The barriers to acceptance by my peers that I have had to climb have been considerably higher than those the conformers have had to mount. Name recognition amongst my class was one of the most difficult challenges I had to conquer. It is also not uncommon to find me standing alone at the edge of the crowd.

Nevertheless, contrary to what some may believe, all this effort to avoid what everyone else does has not made me an unhappy person. In searching the darkest corners of bookshelves for novels only three people have heard of or combing shopping malls for stores that only a handful of people will ever enter, I have found who I really am. If I did not like what I found after avoiding the ordinary, I would have accepted the ordinary years ago. But I did like what I found. It’s because of those novels that I learned to love literature when everyone else hated it. It’s because of those stores that I feel comfortable and confident in every outfit I wear. I know that not every high school student can make those statements every day.

Nonetheless, I still worry how, in a world of over six billion people, I will leave my mark. How will my face not just be another blur in a congregation of people thronging down a sidewalk? I have moved away from the crowd, but how will I move in front of it? How many leaps will I have to take? How much farther will it be necessary for me to run? Or will I have to stop running entirely? It is not necessary for me to leave a legacy comparable to Caesar or Martin Luther or George Washington, but there will be a mass of people graduating come May, and I do not want the only title I ever possess to be Class of 2006.