like every girl
Just like every little girl…
I wouldn’t be surprised if the yearn to fit in came in unison with the foundational gaining of consciousness. I cannot undoubtedly declare that my gaining of consciousness came at any exact moment in time. Although, I reason that in a programmed society consciousness evolves and distorts when new information contradicts the previously held conceptualization of life.
As a child I didn’t grasp knowledge as an extension of something larger than or in comparison to self, but rather as an entity independent of self. My interests laid in stimulating my senses: touching, feeling, tasting, seeing the world as something I was experiencing, while simultaneously ignoring the fact that I was not independent of my observations. A notable realization in my development came around the same moment in time that I entered the 4th grade: that I too was an object to be observed. Alongside this profound realization a new emotional state, insecurity, began to take hold.
Life continued to move beyond the age of 10, as life typically does, and it proved easier to deduce the ignorantly child-like originality and rather choose to conform to the like-mindedness of the herd mentality. Let’s be real, no one wants to empathetically understand the sore-thumb analogy. A lot of life felt like I was reworking all the years of memories that lacked the perspective of societal consciousness, but as the past was unwound, the present was missed and insecurity grew until the attractiveness in being the same as everyone else, instead became exhaustive. Eventually I gave up on wanting to fit in, long after it had already given up on me.
While I no longer felt the incessant urge to fit in, I still found trouble with the societal concept of categorization. A result of the human tendency to seek familiarity in every scenario, prompting the engagement of prejudice and stereotyping. The need for society to categorize, sort, and create patterns of occurrence for the abstract aspects to individual personalities. On the other hand, the need for categorization may come from within, a human need to categorize the self to fit into molds defined by society using the same patterns and overpowering search for familiarity that demanded these constraining categories in the first place.
The vicious cycle that comes with repeatedly organizing a container of the same identical 15 dull butter knives, until finally the singular knife that defied the statistical odds, used more often than the remaining majority, is found with a minor imperfection on the spreading groove nearest to the handle. Remember that night that you let that stale piece of bread sit in the toaster for a little too long, until it began to produce a grayish smoke? So in the heat of the moment, without regard you grabbed a knife from the 15 dull butter knives container and jammed it into the toaster to pry out the sweltering black brick of bread. That’s the night the new imperfection was scarred but went unnoticed until the time came to organize the container and the same butter knife was demoted to a new container, one just for itself, The Knives With Imperfections.
So yes, I now no longer feel the need fit in, but yet I still have an urge to define a sense of self within these prejudice-stricken categories that are not assigned to me, but society deems should be. A happy medium where I fit within the mold, but I do not match it. I recognize that I am not independent of the thoughts, but I am independent of the associated actions. I am me because I am me and me likes to go on walks, but would not be defined as a walker, and I like to work out, but I do not need to do it every day or even consistently to prove that I can feel the thought and not fit the mold. Perhaps, I don’t go out for drinks on a Friday night simply because I would rather stay in, but this doesn’t exempt me from liking to go out. An easier task for the brain would be categorizing this act under the blanket term, “homebody”, but at the end of the day that wouldn’t accurately describe me either. And I don’t want to stand out like a sore thumb, but I’d rather you question every decision I make and leave you with the unsettling answer of I am because I am and I’m not sorry I don’t fit into the perception you thought you had of me.
