I spent most of my life trying to fit in. Looking back, I can trace it to a moment when I was fourteen.
My family had moved, and I was the new kid in a small Louisiana town. I eventually found a group of girls at school. We ate lunch together, spent time together on weekends, and I even started going to church with them.
One weekend we had a sleepover and went to church the next morning. A few days later, two girls from the group handed me a note. I don't remember most of what it said. I only remember one sentence.
The right friend will move over and say, "There's room here."
I threw the note away. Not because it didn't hurt, but because I didn't want my mom to find it.
I remember sitting by myself after that. Watching people. Studying them. Trying to figure out what I had done wrong. Trying to figure out what I needed to change.
I wasn't trying to be fake. I was trying to belong.
The problem is that when you spend years adjusting yourself to fit the people around you, eventually you start losing track of where the adjustments end and you begin.
Being liked feels good. Being fully known feels like peace.
What took me decades to understand is that not fitting in isn't always a problem that needs to be fixed. Sometimes it means you're sitting at the wrong table.
For most of my life, I kept trying to squeeze myself into places that didn't quite fit. Now I just look for the table that has an open seat for me.
The right friendships don't require me to become someone else first. The right friend will move over and say, "There's room here."