On belonging
Maybe fitting in doesn’t matter so much as standing out
For the longest time, I thought I didn’t really belong. Not in any of the cliques throughout my schooling. Not in the friend groups at work.
I didn’t know how to adjust to fit in. I didn’t always know about social norms and niceties. I balked when I went to my first fancy meal with more than one fork and spoon and was hopelessly lost.
Sometimes I felt like I kept craving more. More accolades. More attention. More likes/reads. More of everything, yet somehow it still wasn’t enough.
But now I think I’ve started to belong to myself.
I know we don’t really have a “self” to belong to, but I’m comfortable with the idea of self-authorship. You get to decide what you’re like. If you fake it til you make it, you eventually become what you’re faking. Identity is a malleable thing, not a constant.
Reading Braving the Wilderness by Brene Brown gave me the courage to stand out. It sucks when it feels like you’re in the minority no matter where you go, but you also can choose the community you’re in. You have that much agency, at least, to choose what group you want to surround yourself with.
Those connections mean the world to me.
Suddenly, I don’t feel as alone. I feel seen. Heard. Acknowledged. And maybe even if I don’t matter to many people around me, I matter to me. Finding belongingness in myself, in solitude and desired alone time?
That’s something valuable indeed.
