This morning I read a very Momento Mori quote by Ranier Wilde.

This all ends. None of us make it out alive. This isn’t a sad thought. It’s freedom. It means that we get on with the good stuff of loving who we want and how we want. We can finally start to live before we die. -Ranier Wilde

Growing up in living much of my life in a subculture, there is a sense of going against the grain which is a requirement to be yourself. Most of us had to fight to express ourselves in a certain way, especially in the days where you couldn’t just buy whatever you wanted online. You had to work for it. You had to want it enough to go to a seedy area of town to get your records, hair dye, and alternative clothing. I remember how I used to get my makeup tips from the drag queens in the thrift store on the fringes of Uptown in the 1990’s in Minneapolis. I liked how they did their makeup. Did I get a lot of crap for the blue, green, and purple lipstick that I would wear to school? Of course I did. Did I care? No. Thirty years later in present day, Gucci is making blue, lavender, and green lipsticks. Now it’s high fashion!

It is ironic that most of us ended up in a host of trouble for expressing ourselves beyond the norms in schools, the general public, and/or just walking down the street in general in the 1980’s/1990’s/early 2000’s. It took courage to not be one of the sheep being herded along all livelong day looking and saying and being what people wanted you to be. Spending much of our youth fighting for a look that was beyond the societal norm has somehow transformed into the societal norm of pink haired preppies strolling along with their blue lipstick.

As an aging person in a subculture, even we are expected to behave a certain way after a while. Oh no… Sheila likes a pop song. How dare she! Sheila is supposed to be this or that or do or like this or that. You see? Breaking the mold again, people start to get uncomfortable… again. No matter who you are or where you go, people get ideas in their minds of how they think things should be, because they like predictability.

Predictability is comfortable.

Predictability is safe.

No matter where you are.

What if someone told you, you don’t have to be predictable though? Now this isn’t an excuse to go totally unhinged on innocent bystanders and flip a table at your nearest restaurant for kicks. But, it is a reminder that there is no certain way that you nor anyone is supposed to live. No matter what you do, or where you are… there will always be someone who disagrees or gives you crap for how you are living your life. So you may as well just do what makes you feel good.

There is no right or wrong way in living a life that you see fit. What will radiate from your core is the confidence of living an authentic life, a life that is true to yourself.

-Keri