Coming Out Strange
Photograph by Kendra Maurer
The first pod is recorded, waiting for edit.
I look around and think, “Well, there’s no turning back now.”
My personal truth is about to be broadcast. I’m about to be The One Who Makes Eyes Roll because I have experienced a lot of strange. More than seems reasonable. And for so long, I’d talk about it, but avoid going all-in because who sees ghosts, and Mothman, and Translucent Blobs? Sure, I’d tell a ghost story here and there. Or I’d talk about my Mothman sighting, but never the two at the same time, in the same place. Because I kinda like my life how it is, and adding all of that at once because things like that change relationships.
I’ve never been particularly silent about my experiences, because I don’t generally believe in secrets. Secrets are someone else’s power. They can function as a cage of sorts, keeping you from taking risks, and experiencing some of the more daring social risks...because...what if they find out?
Well, my solution has always been to Live Out Loud. I mess up, I broadcast. Has that backfired? Yes, indeed. But it’s been far more navigable than the betrayal of a long-held secret. I am unapologetically me.
My mom said to me during one of my Truth Sessions, “Why can’t you just lie? Parents want their kids to lie!” She wasn’t entirely serious, but now that I have kids, I kinda get that. Am I completely honest all the time? No. Your hair looks GREAT! And sometimes white lies maintain social order. Supernatural (YES I love everything about that show!!) did a great Season 14 finale in which the world was told to stop lying...and the ensuing chaos was glorious! Ok, it was glorious because it wasn’t real. But it highlighted why lies can be important.
On strangness, though, the lie would be to pretend nothing happened. That’s not fair to others who have had similar run-ins with The Weird. For me to learn I wasn’t alone was everything, and I learned from that. I started to quietly tell my stories. One at a time. And more often than not, the response would be, “That’s like this one time!” and I realized that I was always in the company of others who had seen things like I had--even where it was least expected! My own family had lived in a haunted house near Washington DC! My own, Catholic family!
“She was sane once,” I hear people say in my internal dialogues as I conduct arguments while alone in the shower.
But the thing is, I’ve always been this person. This experiencer. I’m just talking about it now, because I feel a level of social responsibility...to you, the person who has experienced these kinds of things and feel alone.
I don’t expect or demand belief in all I say. Your belief is yours to manage. I can only speak from my experiences, and if they help you, that is everything to me. There is beauty in the strange, and beauty if best shared.
Thank you for joining us on this grand adventure! I look forward to hearing your stories, whether emailed or spoken. These are the Folklore that the future will read to understand us better.
What we have that our ancestors did not are the tools that science has gifted us. Digital recorders, Electromagnetic Frequency Detectors, Video Cameras, Night Vision, Infrared cameras, and the internet so we can tell our stories around the world almost instantaneously.
And I am so excited!