There’s one thing I've learned along this journey that has had a greater impact on me than any other lesson I've learned (and oh how many there have been!) It’s the one that hits me at my most vulnerable place of all, in my aloneness.
Because I've always felt so alone.
I've always felt so different on the inside, so unlovable because I wasn't just like everyone else. And while I played the part so well on the outside, inside there was such a different story going on. Inside I was the one who didn't quite fit in – anywhere. I always felt like I was on the outside looking in.
Surrounded by so much pressure to conform in order to be loved, I learned to play the part well, while internalizing so much of what went unsaid; I was different in a world where different wasn't a valuable asset, but something to be changed, to be shamed away, to be shut down and shut out. It didn't matter whether that was the intention or not, that was my own lonely reality.
And so in my epic search to find a cure for my loneliness, although I wouldn't come to boil it down to that until many, many years later, I was always chasing after the ones who made me feel less alone. The ones who were different, the ones who blazed their own trails and didn't care what anyone – including me – thought.Continue Reading
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