Embarrassed to be Pagan

I'm posting this on a day other than a Monday because it isn't so much about Paganism but about me, as a Pagan. For the longest time I was embarrassed to tell others that I was Pagan. Prior to that it was practically written on my forehead or one of the first things out of my mouth when I was asked to describe myself.
I turned to Paganism in my teens because I had been raised Christian and I didn't like that god, the god of my father whom I also wished to create distance from. It wasn't an act of rebellion, because Father wasn't around to rebel against and Mother has approved of just about every choice I've ever made (so long as she didn't have to hear to dirty details). I grew up loving magic and fantasy and this sacred my step-grandmother to total craziness (not that the religious of any faith need a reason to be crazy [as I'll post about here in a moment], just a reason to let it out). She just knew that it would lead me down a path to witchcraft and devil worship. As much as I hate to say it, she was right, too. Witchcraft was my go-to after leaving Christianity and worshiping a horned god that dances naked in the fields and seduces maidens and boys alike while encouraging us to "Know Theyself," especially the darker parts, while at the same time being the Illuminating Sun; he might as well be the Christian Devil.
In those early days it was mostly about the magic and I called it Wicca. It wasn't Wicca, but I didn't know that until quite some time later. When I moved out from under my mother's roof and away to a place that had a college I finally got to meet other Pagans. It was a mixed group: older and younger, learned and ignorant, naive and jaded, practice-oriented and spiritual. They invited me to my very first Gathering and that weekend my life changed. I was in love with Pagan People and the Spirit that binds us together. It wasn't about the magic anymore, it was about Spirit and ironically, it was very magical.
So, then I shifted my focus of study from spells and rituals to gods and connection. Eventually the two came to overlap for me.
I soon got involved with the greater Pagan community. And I met people.
I met "Merlin"s and "Maeven"s, "FeatherWind"s and "StormWolf"s.
I met people that wear fantasy-faire clothing to their religious events and people that wear gaudy, over-the top jewelry that provoked others to work as an expression of faith.
I met people that could talk to plants in their own special little language, heard voices telling them to do things, or saw things that no one else could see (ever) and believed that it had nothing to do with any sort of psychiatric disorder.
I met people that were the reincarnations of one of the Dragon Priest-Kings of Atlantis.
I met people that knew about this sudden tear between our world and the Astral Realm and they were the only ones capable of fixing it.
I met people so crippled by how tremendously psychic they were that going out to a bar would kill them and it had nothing to do with agoraphobia, a dislike of cigarette smoke, or loud music but was instead because the emotions of the place and its people would reek havoc on their more empathic (as opposed to empathetic) psyche.
I met people that poured over text books and demanded source material for every aspect of your practice because if it hadn't been research and documented by an archaeological or an anthropologist then it was completely false and blasphemous to do, regardless of the fact that those ancient cultures didn't have some academic instructing them on how to talk to their gods.
I met people that had gone on to become Lords, Ladies, Masters and Third Degrees of their respective traditions and still couldn't manage to achieve anything in their own lives, see beyond themselves or muster up the Will to do some of the most basic of tasks.
And then I started talking to people outside of the Pagan community about being Pagan, and they had met all of those other people, first. I went on to college and met teachers that were honestly shocked that I called myself Pagan because of how informed I was about history, philosophy, psychology and the intricacies of other religions. I told them that intelligent, grounded, non-diluted Pagans existed, we just kept our faith to ourselves, I guess, and seemingly for good reason.
I'll admit that most of my friends call me Fox, I like eccentric clothing and jewelry, I communicate with the Unseen, I talk to my cats, I believe that some of my disorders are enhanced by certain psychic influences, I love to reference my books, and I have a hard time mustering the will to get out of bed some days, too. But, while all of that may be the case, I generally know the right place and time to express all that and I'm medicated to help some of it, too.
I'm not embarrassed as much to say that I'm Pagan anymore, but I'm not so quick to tell people without having proven myself to them in some way, first.
~A. Fox