Follow Your Own Rules!

I think this is so cool! I created my first skateboard design using Zazzle.com today!

Here's the link.
http://www.zazzle.com/my_own_rules_skateboard-186973657444045909

There's a story here...

When I was a teenager I really wanted to learn to skateboard. But I didn't know any girls who rode a skateboard. And I was super shy and not doing *anything* to call attention to myself was my own self imposed taboo. (Well, I occasionally let myself dress a little wild. I remember wearing a military jacket and a pair of tall black boots from the 60s that I'd found at thrift stores. But by then I had convinced myself I was so invisible people wouldn't notice what I wore...just what I did.) And I was too caught up in believing I had to "follow the rules" i.e. what I thought others expected of me...and skateboarding was the last thing people expected of me. Everyone always described me as shy, nice, sweet and reserved...not that crazy girl who does things like ride skateboards. I thought I had to live up to the descriptions everyone gave of me, despite the inner angst that I wanted to live a life of something different, something more.

I'm now 36 and a part of me says... "Even though I know there are some women my age who skateboard, they've been doing it a long time and it's probably a little more acceptable for girls/women to skateboard where they live (i.e. California). I'm too old to take it up for the first time now." But then I am reminded of the quote by George Eliot (the pen name of a woman named Mary Anne Evans who wrote under the pseudonym of a man so she could follow her dreams of being taken seriously as a writer) that says, "It's never too late to be who you might have been."

So, maybe someday I'll take up skateboarding. In the meantime, there are other ways in which I'll follow what it says on that skateboard design I created...I'll follow my own rules. I am a thrift store fashion lover. I'm a fan of anime and kickboxing. I love romantic home decor...if it's pink and has roses on it I'm almost certain to love it. I'm eclectic and paradoxical. I now am also a part-time writer, and dabbler as an artist/designer for t-shirts and other things, and I've got plans in the works to start my own dream business that I envision being quirky and cool at the same time.

I definitely don't fit in a box or template of anyone's making...except God's.

Yeah, I'm starting to follow my own rules of how I want to be living.