All that I am not...

 

I am not black enough, I am not white enough, I am not smart enough, I am tall but not tall enough, I'm good but never good enough, I'm pretty but not pretty enough, my hair is not tame enough, I am not capable enough, my skills are not enough, my passion is not enough, my knowledge is not enough, my personality is my enough, I'm not nice enough, I'm not patient enough, I'm not kind enough, I'm not confident enough, I'm not passive enough, I'm not cool enough, I'm not fashionable enough, I'm not rich enough...in fact I've got a big student loan, I'm not informed enough, I'm not fit enough, I don't exercise enough, I'm not religious enough, I'm not spiritual enough, I'm not agnostic enough, I don't post enough on Facebook, I don't have a twitter account, I don't have enough friends, I'm not the life of the party and I don't tell everybody every aspect of my life or open up to people enough.  I'm not enough like what people expect me to be...

But here I am, stuck in the middle, not being enough of anything to put myself in one of the categories. Sometimes we hear and encounter so much negativity on a daily basis about the things we are not (especially from our own heads), it can be really hard to remember the things that you actually are.

Point is, I have been enveloped in the feeling of not really belonging and not being like other people my whole life. And I saw it as a bad thing and desperately searched to find a place to "fit in". Do you remember when they didn't have the "other" box when you had to put your race down on a form? I do. So what do you do when you are 8 or 9 years old and there is a box that says black and a box that says white? Which one are you supposed to choose? That was just one of many experiences that told me subtly that I don't fit in.

I realize now not that not fitting in is not a bad thing, and am learning to embrace it. I even found a great guy who doesn't "fit in" either! The last couple of years I've been kind of obsessed with figuring out who I really am. And I decided that listing the things I am not would help me get closer to that. Basically all that I have figured out is that I am someone who doesn't fit into typical categories. Not exactly the lift altering wisdom I was aiming for, but it is a start! I am hoping that by slowly figuring out all the things that I AM... I will start to understand myself better, accept myself more, and grow into the person that I want to be.