Finding your place in any world can be hard

​Boxes. They're safe. They're precise. They tell you where things belong and provide a way to measure and compare. The world loves boxes.

But some of us don't fit in boxes.

We shamelessly mix the unmixable. We become jacks of all trades, yet masters at none. We seek the unique, gravitate toward the strange, and wander across boundaries--to others' horror.

It is then we find ourselves shoved in the box marked, "Abnormal," and the pressure begins. Pressure to conform. Pressure to choose one thing over another. Pressure to confine ourselves to acceptable places.

Some give in, relinquishing their uniqueness to the cookie-cutter. Some try to hide. Some of us find it impossible to do either--even if we want to--and must seek our place somewhere between the opposites pulling us apart.

That journey is hard. Often requiring sacrifice. Always painful.

But it is possible.

These are the stories I tell.