I was nine years old
The first time someone told me
That I needed to either conform to the mold
Or be discarded as defective
I would say that they didn’t say it in so many words…
But they kind of did.
You would think comments like that
Would be more veiled,
But nine-year-olds don’t generally speak in euphemism.
And as I’ve grown,
I’ve found that nine-year-olds
Don’t have the market cornered
On this lack of nuance.
Any advice I’ve had to fit the mold
Or be discarded as defective,
Even by grown adults,
Has been thinly veiled…
At best.
At worst, it’s been a list of rules
About how to be counted
As simply acceptable—
Not worthy or valuable—
But simply acceptable.
(I would say that they didn’t say it in so many words…
But they kind of did.)
Acceptable—
As an employee
As a member of society
As a good consumer
As an American
As a wife
As a mother
As a Christian
As a woman
As a Christian woman
As a Christian woman and wife and mother.
As a person.
And if I don’t fit the mold,
I will be discarded as defective.
I don’t have to fit the mold.
I certainly don’t have to fit the mold—
I can break the mold.
They love people who break the mold.
They do,
They absolutely love people who break the mold.
They will cheer me on if I break the mold.
But then they will come
Silently in the night
To discard me as defective.
And I look around
And see huge crowds
Lining up in the factory,
Killing themselves to fit this mold,
Arranging their lives to fill up every crevice of this mold,
Trimming precious parts of themselves off,
So as not to expand outside this mold.
Because if they break the mold,
They will be cheered on,
And people will love them—
And then those same people will come
Silently in the night
To discard them as defective.
Better to expand and trim and grow and shrink,
Than be discarded as defective.
But suddenly,
The fog dissipates
And I have a Cady Heron moment of clarity.
The mold does not exist.
All this expanding and shrinking and trimming and filling,
And the mold doesn’t even exist?!
You can’t break the mold because
THE MOLD DOES NOT EXIST.
In one moment,
I see us all lined up
In a factory
Waiting to be poured into the image
Of the latest
Book
Or influencer
Or trend
Or leader
Or personality type
Or model human.
And the next moment,
The smoke clears,
And the factory does not exist.
And the mold does not exist.
And instead
We’re in a potter’s workshop,
And he is taking the time
To form each of us by hand.
And he does not duplicate a single piece.
Or discard a single piece as defective.
And those parts of ourselves
That we were so desperate
To trim off,
Are the parts
He would use to make us
The most unique piece the world has ever seen,
If we would only get out of line
At the fake factory
And let him.
