Ever Felt Like You Didn't Fit In?

Have you ever felt like you didn't fit in? Like for some cosmic reason you were put on this earth completely different from anyone else. Not in a special I am perfect and they aren't kind of way but an I am not like anyone else and I can't find a way to become a part of anything.

It's like being a magnet and your trying to push yourself onto another magnet that is flipped the wrong way, it pushes back and there is no possible way to connect. Have you stood in a large group of people over and over, conversed like you should have, mingled like you were expected to and yet never felt like you belonged? That maybe you were too naïve, too young, too simple maybe to be near a group of complex people? To have such an utter feeling of abnormality that you have to remove yourself from company to just cherish being alone with the one person who truly understand you, yourself.

I have felt that way longer than I can remember, a simple longing to connect with others but not having any possible clue as to why. Even with my family, although I have that connection that is so intense and secure with my mother I have never been able to gain that with my father or my brother. I love them intensely but there isn't a scrap of true understanding. I am still not like them, only my mother and I are alike. And even though I have joined and grouped myself with others I still feel bereft, maybe not even that just off, different, alien. Growing up in schools I had friends like all the rest of the other girls, but they didn't seem life changing or important enough to worry about when one moved or I changed schools. Even when my best friend moved away, I felt regret at the loss but no heavy tears no complete emptiness that I assume others would feel. I would have boyfriends and dump them all when I was tired of dealing with the complexity or feigning the desire to become more. And as I got older and I dated seriously I would make myself over into someone completely different in hopes that maybe just maybe that would make me like them and I would fit, like a puzzle piece changing color with no idea how to change shape.

Then when I realized I couldn't be what was needed indifference set in and I would cast whims out not caring if they were fulfilled, and then inevitably I would end the relationship again because I couldn't pretend to want anymore. When I went to college I pulled out of my shell the fake person I had put out there, the wallflower I had become, and I bloomed. I became a sensual, wild being with no ties, no one to tell me I had to act way or another, no friends to tell me to date one person or the other. I learned to tease and taunt, to languish and linger just long enough, I had no boyfriends but plenty of admirers, I created desire in others and didn't realize it most times and then relished in it when I did. But then tragedy struck and a brutal incident made me hide yet again, become that crumpled shell of a person I had hated growing up, I hid behind a man to keep from reliving those horrible moments again and again, and yet somehow I still did, and at times still do. I became his slave in a way, doing as he wished when he wished because his control made it so I could make no more decisions that ended badly. I could not come to terms with that. I had thought I had become something, someone, special even but I withdrew because I could not accept that with the wildness I felt within me and the spontaneous choices I made came the responsibilities and the results that I had yet to realize I needed to bear.

Then another life changing moment happened, and it was a responsibility that I had the choice to take on to shoulder and love or cast away. But I wanted this I needed this so I did it, and yet another piece of my other self was hidden away. I then had to swallow every ounce of pride and go back home for help and another piece of myself was hidden, I started a job I despised but needed because of my responsibility and my desire to do what was right, and another piece of me was lost. I packed every little piece of wildness and difference and brightness away until I was like every other average person out there that ate, slept and worked within this small box we make for ourselves, and I kidded myself that I could fit.

Ultimately again I felt I couldn't be part of the whole cohesive unit or friends and family. I became restless with need to find something else, I dated and left them because I didn't feel, and I just didn't feel like someone should feel if they were in love. And then I transformed again, I could no longer handle the boring everyday that I created for myself for the person I had created after I packed the other away. I ensconced myself into another relationship, and it was different and crazy, and wild, but not the wild I was, not the clean after the rain fresh air wildness that thrills the skin, but the tainted darker side that somehow I fooled myself into thinking this was it. I still didn't fit not fully but I did seem to fit in a way so I held on tighter to that than I had to so many things in such a long time, I fooled myself into believing this was it, and when I finally came to my senses I was so covered in filth and darkness that I don't think I ever fully recovered, some of it still smears my soul.

After that I settle into normal everyday yet again, feeling adrift in a sea with plenty of land in sight but nothing that allowed my ship to come safely on shore, not without another compromise of my person. Have you felt that you don't understand anyone around or actually did understand everyone around, down to there most secret thoughts and dreams and for that you don't understand them? To be forever meeting people and being able to see who they are at their core, making you feel more bewildered and overwhelmed in there being? After the last relationship ended badly I pulled into myself and took secret tours into the person I truly was deep down. It was like a raspberry dark chocolate truffle, so rich, so decadent that it melts in your mouth and you savor every last moment of it on your tongue, but then inexorably it's gone. I did this over and over just tantalizing teasing moments. But each moment I realized I hadn't found everything I truly was and so I researched and I read and I became more caged because I knew pieces of what I wanted and those pieces started to grow more and the façade I was living was cracking at the edges because they no longer could contain my being.

And then fate the usually cruel bitch that she is did me the biggest kindness and gave me the best gift, I found him. He walked into the room and immediately I was drawn, I knew nothing of him, not who he was, his name, his person nothing, but I was drawn, me drawn to someone! It was strong and almost painful, I would see him in the room only on occasion and it was like dipping myself in cool water, I was calmer and cleaner and more of who I knew I was ultimately when he was there. I wanted him, I wanted in a way that was base and deep seated in myself. And oddly he wanted me, the true me the one that was wild yet innocent, and the woman who had been hiding for years could bloom under his hand. And all of a sudden I could hand him control, not because he asked it of me he never would, but because I wanted too because I could trust him not to break me, or my spirit. He was just as intense and complex as I was which created large arguments and also deep love. The world outside was still just as alien as different as it was before but here someone that actually fit up against this oddly shaped puzzle piece. I could let small parts of my true self, and discover more. And then another large change, one that would require more strength and independence than I had ever believed was truly within me. I moved from anything and everyone I had ever known, and my mom the one person who knew me the true me and who fit me. My free spirit had to be bound yet again so I could buckle down and do what was needed. But then after the change I settled back into humdrum, I forgot who I was, too many responsibilities ones I was unsure about and again I became that scared little girl that hung onto her mother because she was the only other one like her, but instead I hung onto him like he could hide me or make me back into the person I had become and loved. Of course he couldn't how is that possible, how can someone pry open a door that can only be opened on the other side. Only I could do this but still I clung. I clung because he was the only piece that now fit and I couldn't figure out how to deal with the rest of my new life. And he held onto me but instead of being lovers and ourselves that we had found with each we had become lifelines, but lifelines that somehow stuck to long and too tight and started to strangle what was a free, deep, endless love, into a responsibility and maybe even a chore for him. I couldn't find that person deep down because I had packed her so far away with responsibility and fear of rejection that pulling her out was harder than I thought. I let my fear take hold and I had become stuck in my box.

But I realized something about myself. I am a woman who enjoys sensual encounters on a daily basis if not more, who wants to make stupid decisions just to see what will happen, who is so deeply emotional about all things because I feel them 10 times stronger than others do, who feels other people emotions just as strong as my own, who constantly gets lost literally and figuratively because I do without thinking, who loves too much, fears too much, and thinks too much. I can get myself wrapped up in a book for hours and forget everything including the time, I talk way too much trying to express the feelings I have onto others since they cant feel them like I do, I cant figure out what career I truly want because I haven't yet let myself realize what I truly want, and I have a silly belief that I can change the world. I also am not model size, don't have the perfect hair or the perfect skin, I love to cook but it's always messy, and my car is an absolute disaster and I like it that way. I am me, no more no less than that, whether that is average, boring, unique, odd, quirky, or downright ridiculous to others. I am me. And whether no one out this in this world can fit me, and no matter that people only see an average person when they look at me and nothing special. I am still me, and I revel in it. I have a man that I love so deeply it shakes my soul, I have a daughter that is going to turn out like me whether she wanted it or not, and I have a purpose. What that purpose is or when it will find its path to my door I don't know. I am finally going to pull away all the cobwebs and the dust and open up that box and let her out, because deep down I have and always will be that woman, who wants too much and makes stupid decisions out of pure feelings and no logic. But that woman is the one I love being the one that makes me happy just being the oddly shaped puzzle piece I am, whether I am part of a bigger puzzle or not.