Fitting In

Confession time.

Somebody confided to me to me once, long ago, that, if he hadn't played sports, he wouldn't have "fit in" with the right people (whatever that means). Another says that she felt left out because she wasn't living on the "right" side of town. Another had acne, another weight. So many excuses, and all very real to a seventeen-year-old.

But I am not seventeen. I am sixty-one. There is no pressure to be part of "the crowd". If they want me, fine, but I have lots of friends who consider me an important part of their lives. I am lucky to have them, and I cherish every one.

I'm not particularly shy. I do tend to say what I am thinking. My real friends know this and accept it or tell me to shut up (gently, of course). In some others I inspire awe (or awful). No matter.

But there are days, and recently a handful of them, when I feel left out. I do not belong. The hurt continues long after the incident. I feel avoided. No matter....but it does matter. I know it is time to move on, but I feel stalled. Is this the root of The Blues?

Why should it bother me? I don't know, yet it has always been there. It's a feeling of inadequacy. I'm not pretty enough, not funny enough, not patient enough....the list goes on and on.....too aggressive, not aggressive enough, not smart enough. Lazy or ambitious. Nothing I do is right.  I think more vertically than horizontally and some folks don't get that. I haven't the patience to explain it. 

A person the other day was uncharacteristically nice. My hackles went up.  She ordinarily doesn't speak. This time she gushed. I found the reason, of course, and was crushed. Believing you have changed a person's mind about you, looking forward to civility (if not friendship) burns inside. I like to be liked.

So there it is, my latest confession, the latest thing I've been shown in my prayer to "change me".

Everyone doesn't like me. I won't always "fit in". That's the way it goes. I can't let the way someone else feels about me rule my life. They don't know what they are missing.

See, for the people I care about I am important. I am special. I am loved. They like me, faults and all.

I fit in.