The first thought that enters my mind when someone asks me to describe myself is “ordinary”, “vanilla”, and “nothing special”.
It’s been that way for as long as I can remember. There quite simply isn’t anything about me that stands out: I was/am the quiet kid who spent summers with my nose jammed into books and with headphones on, the one who doesn’t cause problems, the one who just sorta kinda exists, the one everyone knows is there but isn’t sure how to reach on any particular level: Sara – Plain and tall.
I spent the majority of my youth absolutely hating this: I hated my name (too short, too ordinary, too everything), I hated my hair, I hated the way I liked to dress, I hated the way I existed. I hated me and everything that I encompassed. I’m not like other people in a lot of ways and I always longed to be more….well….I suppose “more” anything.
I even decided to change my name when I turned 18 because “Sara” was too much of everything I spent so much time trying to change. Thankfully, I never did find anything that fit me more than my own name does and I gradually learned to accept that maybe, just maybe, I was meant to be the quiet and demure one of the bunch.
Accepting that came with it’s own set of problems. Accepting myself meant accepting that I’m not always enough for some people and I’m altogether too much for others. It meant accepting that I might not ever truly be seen. It meant accepting that my relationships would always have a wall because I would always know that I wasn’t exciting enough for most people, nor was I going to be the one someone would run home telling crazy stories about. It meant accepting that being me means learning to accept being left behind. Even now. It meant accepting being the fly on the wall rather than the girl on the dance floor…and on most days, I’m fine with that. I learned to accept my good points and my flaws equally and work to change what truly didn’t serve me.
Sometimes though…just every now and again…I wonder if I’ll ever feel like I fit in anywhere again.
Maybe that’s the point… fitting in is the wrong goal. Maybe the point is to learn that Plain and Tall isn’t such a bad thing and that somewhere down the line, someone will recognize it for all it’s brilliance again.
Perhaps the person who needs to recognize it the most is me.
