Nobody has ever accused me of lacking depth. Rather, it seemed I had odds and bits sticking out from every corner of my being, forming an inconsistent, unacceptable shape that refused to fit into any preconceived box. It was fine by me, I was quite proud to be an original and even more so to go against the current of absent-minded hate and ignorance. If you know anything about humans, however, you understand the vastness of my naivety. The reality is that everyone is infinitely different from each other, but there are some divergences from the norm that are more acceptable than others. It's difficult to be rejected on any single axis and your hardships grow logarithmically with every new facet of your identity. In any case, I was never particularly good at calculating the risks, or perhaps I was simply a slow study. It seemed impossible to just take the path of least resistance and blend in, to survive while I was sentenced to share space with intolerant people. Therefore, I was the one with the most impertinent and challenging questions at church, however well intentioned they were. At school, I was the kid who had a hard time with social cues, couldn't understand my girl friends’ obsessions over boys and that related more to teachers than to others my age. At home, I was a rebel who couldn't be bent or manipulated easily, choosing to pay for my disobedience rather than go against my morals. Adults claimed I presumed to know too much for my age while simultaneously praising me for my intelligence; kids claimed I was pathetic and disgusting, below any empathy. I recalled too much and knew too much to be one with my own, but lived too little to stand next to anyone else. Hence, I became a pariah of sorts, alienated from all possible eye to eye interactions. It's not too arduous to imagine the natural conclusion to this. Being an outcast, or, more precisely, a deviant became part of my self proclaimed identity. As I subconsciously tried to find ways to make myself smaller and more palatable, I publicly owned my differences and declared myself proud of them. Nevertheless, if you ever tried to change yourself to please others, you will find that they will always find new and creative ways to make you feel othered. As time went on, my personality predictably gained consistency, but instead of maintaining its form, I found that I was able to shape it into a million different configurations. Suddenly, I could hold a conversation about any possible subject and still be cohesive and coherent in my position. I wasn't one thing or the other, but I was it all, all at once. Unfortunately, with that grand discovery also came a harder one. I was malleable, but I wasn't set in stone. If left in the same pattern for too long a time, if I tried to be just one person, I would dry and shatter and break. I wasn't meant to be contained and I wasn't meant to fit into a box. What that meant was that for once I had to accept that I was never going to be shallow, my brain would never be hollow enough for me to be able to be predicted and nobody likes what they can't control. So, I was never accused of lacking depth. Rather, I was accused of being too deep. This wasn't handed to me as a gift, but wielded like a weapon. I am different and I am filled to the brim. But perhaps it isn't the ocean's fault for people's fear.