Do I Fit?

I stumbled around life confused, from the get-go. I am the youngest of four, presumably a mistake, and was often left alone. Everyone in my family had their place and their talents. The eldest had my father's name and was a favorite. The second eldest an artist, mirroring my father's abilities. The third was brilliant, she found her esteem through impeccable grades and book smarts. I was the black sheep, often in trouble or about to be.

I didn't fit at home and found myself to be a bit of an outcast in school. I was popular among the masses, reflecting what they liked to see, but never really being a part of.

I wasn't sporty enough for the athletes. I wasn't pretty enough for the popular girls. I wasn't nerdy enough to jive with the smart people. And even with the degenerates and stoners, I could not find a permanent place, as I would get "too high", and they found me unsavory at those times.

Over and over it was a recurring theme, "I do not fit anywhere, I am not enough."

Alcohol became my solace at the ripe age of 12 or 13, and I finally had my permanent companion. It was always there if I had enough money, enough connections, enough wit to steal it. So for the bottle, I was enough. Through it, I became a chameleon, and with it, I could fit everywhere.

Turns out I'm an alcoholic of the type that can't stop when they start, so eventually my best friend began giving me troubles. I was suspended often, whenever the cops came to school everyone knew they were there for me. It certainly did not help the fitting in bit.

My friends' mother's started telling them they couldn't spend time with me anymore. My own mother was sick of my shit and was busy getting high out of her own mind to forget her sorry life for what it was. Everywhere I went, there I was, and there seemed no escape to it other than beautiful oblivion; rapture through the bottle.

Eventually, about 8 or 9 years later, I had to give up the drink. I was horribly depressed, anxious, at my wits end with myself. The magic had stopped working, and all the drink seemed to do was magnify the consequences I was running from. I attempted suicide many times. "No one would care anyways," I would tell myself. "Anyone would make a better mother than me!"

But, as it would turn out, I'm not good "enough" at suicide.

I couldn't live right, couldn't die right, so what other choice did I have? I chose sobriety. It sucked at first, I won't lie, and it made "me not fitting in my skin," all the worse. But over some time, I began to meet people just like me.

Weirdos, crazies, people who have spent far more time locked up or in asylums than I have. People who also wanted to give up the fight. People who understood me, and showed me what they did to find comfort in a world where "we don't fit."

I found out I'm not all that unique. My pains are shared with many; abandonment, trauma, abuse, neglect... Pain is its own language, and these people spoke mine. They shared their stories with me and I shared mine with them. I started to feel a little less lonely. A little more understood. A little more at home. They told me the night terrors would subside, and they did. They told me they survived similar or worse things, and if they did, I could too.

A host of friends grew up around me. My "tribe", if you will. After a couple of years, they taught me how to be with myself, as I am. Since then I've spoken in front of hundreds of people, multiple times. I've finished things, like school, and met goals I could've never dreamed of achieving. I've been honored to do for others what they've done for me, comforting those that have been where I've been, and showing them out of the pit of despair.

Every day I was a fish out of water. Suffocating in an unloving society full of misunderstanding and condemnation. To "them", I was unhelpable. I was a delinquent. I was not enough, and never would be. To my tribe, who lifted me up, I am more than enough. I am a whole ass person who gets a whole ass place on this earth, and every day I can survive wherever I am because of that.

So to all those gasping fish out there, I encourage you to find your tribe. Find your community. Find the people as weird as you, and learn to fill the shoes you were given at birth.

We are like wanderers in a forest. Somehow we end up in there, at some point or another in life. Then someone comes along someone who has walked a path similar to ours, and can help us find the way out. Or, they don't even know the way, but you get to walk it together. Pain doesn't hurt the same as it does alone.

- Anonymous