It was second grade and all was right with the world. I had my three best friends, I was doing well in school, I spent time with family and lived in Smallville, Ohio. Then I found out that after I finished second grade my family would be moving about four hours away, across the state, due to my dad’s job. I left behind what I knew and moved to another Smallville, Ohio, but it wasn’t nearly the same. I quickly realized how important it is to be born in and stay in a town to be of any sort of importance. And thus began my journey of being an outsider.
I came to this town with zero name recognition, and no idea who anyone was. I was able to make a few friends, but continually felt like I just didn’t fit well with the atmosphere of the town. I distinctly remember one day in class we had to pick partners, and one of the very well-liked boys asked me to be his partner. I thought that maybe people were starting to like me and that I was starting to find my place, until I quickly found out that he only wanted to be my partner because he wanted to get a nice grade on the project, and went right back to ignoring my existence after the project was over. I started to feel like the convenience friend, the one people hang out with when there’s no one else around and they just don’t want to be alone. I started to spend countless hours in the library, and the accelerated reader program and the librarian became some of my best friends. For two years I got a small taste of what was to come, and after fourth grade we moved again.
Due to the next town’s horrific school district, we were thus enrolled into a private Catholic school. The immediate weirdness of not being Catholic and going to a Catholic school subsided fairly soon into the school year. However the feelings of inadequacy that followed were something I would deal with for the next three years. Surrounded by extremely wealthy families, I felt like I was constantly striving to reach the level of the other kids, who always had newer, better, bigger things. Sadly, I started to develop a materialistic mentality as I was surrounded by it day after day. I took up basketball and tried to continue dancing in order to somewhat try and fit in with specific groups of people at the school, however I never seemed to meet their standards. People included me at school because I was there, but as soon as I stepped outside of the school building it was like I was forgotten, and I was never truly considered to be part of any of the “groups.”
Eighth grade rolled around and we were moving again, this time to a large suburb in Cincinnati where the average grade size was about five times bigger than what I was used to. That summer I got contacts, grew out my hair and worked out almost everyday, because I was determined to fit in at this place. I wasn’t going to be an outsider anymore. Then I stepped into the middle school and was in a sea of unfamiliar faces, many of which were the children of bank CEOs and Bengal’s part-owners. I was a new name that no one really cared enough to find out about. I didn’t have a reputable last name and my parents didn’t make a lot of money, so I was just another face in the crowd (I know I’m bringing up the money thing again but the median income in this area was legitimately around $250,000, I am not joking). I joined band and made the basketball team, but the joy I found in both of those quickly faded. The band directed hated that I played basketball and didn’t practice more for band, and almost daily shouted at me in front of the entire class about how horrible of a player I was and that I needed to practice more and do better, and that if I didn’t play basketball I wouldn’t screw up so much. My success in basketball was short lived, when I sprained my ankle and found myself a wonderful starting spot on the bench. I tried to find solace in the classroom, but was not used to the different teaching style, soon fell behind, and was told that I was not intelligent enough to take advanced classes in high school. No matter what I did or where I went I felt like I wasn’t really supposed to be there. Then came the glorious day when my parents asked if I wanted to return to our hometown of Smallville, and I said yes without any hesitation. It was the most excited I had ever been about moving.
That was until I went to school and discovered that the friends I had before moving wanted nothing to do with me. The one place I thought I was guaranteed to feel safe, and I was back to square one. I tried being friends with the people that I had perceived to be “cool” but always felt like a burden and that they really didn’t want me with them. I was eventually able to find good friends, a handful of which I have stayed friends with to this day. But I spent all four years of high school striving to be liked by everyone, especially those “cool” kids. I did what people asked, I helped others with schoolwork, I tried to be nice to everyone just so I could be liked. What I wore, the music I listened to, what I was involved with, orbited around what I thought would make people approve of me.
I tell you all of this so you can see how I have spent so much of my life searching for approval. I was so discontented with being an outsider that I would do everything in my power to change it, without any prevail. It took going through my first year of college to realize that there is so much more to life than being liked by everyone. I decided to make a promise to myself that who I am would no longer be dependent on who everyone else is. It did take awhile, and I had to continually ask myself what I actually like. I had what seemed like a pre-adult identity crisis, as I tried to separate who I really was from the facade I had put on for so long. I realized that I had spent so much time trying to shove myself into the “perfect” box of who society says we should be. But God gave me a unique shape, that is not meant to fit into that box. My shape was a little bent for a while from years of trying to shove it into that stupid box, but I feel that my shape is now starting to return to it’s glorious uniqueness. I thought that being like everyone else would bring freedom, when in reality it brought the complete opposite. True freedom is in seeing that God did not create you to be like the rest of the world. You are His handiwork, a masterpiece, and there is no one on this earth like you. Please breathe in the magnitude of that -- seven billion people and none of them are like you. Instead of expending all of your energy trying to fit your shape into society’s box, use that energy to grow all of the beautiful, different things that you have. Please try to see yourself the way God sees you, not the way the world wants you to be. I used to hate being an outsider. Now I have begun to see the beauty of being different from the world, living a life that stands out, stepping away from the monochromatic and living the colorful, joyful, adventure-filled life that God has prepared for me. I am completely content with being an outsider for life. I encourage you to try it. People may not like it, but I promise you will eventually find like-minded people who are living the same way you are, people who appreciate the idea of living differently from the world. Community like that is unlike anything you’ve ever experienced, trust me. God has an adventure prepared for you, but the adventure starts when you step away from the box. Some people hear the word outsider and think of it as a bad thing. Personally, I don’t think a world full of outsiders would be all that bad.
