STARGIRL

If you have not read Stargirl and Love, Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli....you desperately need to read these wonderful young adult literature texts.

Stargirl teaches us in the most unique and heartwarming way, what it truly means to be unapologetically YOU.

In the first book, Stargirl is a young woman, formerly home schooled and attending her first public school ever. It is a story about conformity at its most powerful, and one girl's journey to be true to herself. Stargirl is on all accounts, and by all definitions, DIFFERENT. She wears outrageous clothing, cheers for the opposing team at basketball games, carries a pet rat around with her at all times, and sings "happy birthday" to everyone in school on their individual birthdays accompanied by her ukelele.

As you can imagine, when something does not fit into a box, or a specific category; when we cannot simply label someone...people begin to get uncomfortable. The students don't know what to think or do about her. The story unfolds as she finds love, tries to change herself for her love, and ultimately returns to her own soul.

These are my favorite quotes:

“She was illusive. She was today. She was tomorrow. She was the faintest scent of cactus flower, the flitting shadow of an elf owl. We did not know what to make of her. In our minds we tried to pin her to a corkboard like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and away she flew”--Stargirl

I can't help but wonder what would happen if each of us, strived to be our own fabulous versions of ourselves, each and every day. No apologies, no excuses, no fears.

"But I no longer hope to be found, Leo. Do not follow me! Let's just be fabulously where we are and who we are. You be you and I'll be me, today and today and today, and let's trust the future to tomorrow. Let the stars keep track of us. Let us ride our own orbits and trust that they will meet. May our reunion be not a finding but a sweet collision of destinies!"--Love, Stargirl

Stargirl, as a teenager, is onto something that even the most mature and spiritually awakened humans have a hard time with. Living in the present. Being you and only you in the day that we have right now. Trust your souls that the universe, God, or your personal higher power is guiding you.

Read the books. They are quick, easy, and can make the world of difference in our world that hates difference.