Fitting in: How I discovered where I belong

From the time we enter our elementary school years until we enter our senior citizen years, we are always trying to fit in. Where do we belong? With what group of people do we share interests? Where should I live? And if you’re a pre-teen or teen, how do I get into the “popular” group?

My 12-year-old daughter is dealing with that last struggle right now. She attends a wonderful high-tech middle school in Boca Raton, Fla., a wealthy community. Most of the students who attend that school, however, have parents who give them anything they want. Every day my daughter deals with the fact that she doesn’t own an iPhone or some type of smart phone and she doesn’t wear Abercrombie clothes. She also doesn’t look like the “popular” girls. She doesn’t have straight-straight hair, she has acne, and she has started getting a little figure. All of that, she says, makes her different — puts her outside of the “popular” girls group. Oh, the tragedy of being different!

Boston -- Where I fit in (Photo supplied by FreeFoto.com)

I know exactly how she feels. I tell her that things will get better — that middle school is, and has always been, difficult for girls. I tell her to not try to be friends with everyone but find close friends and stick with them. They’re the ones who matter most, not the bitchy Boca snobs who look down at you because you have curly hair. I tell her to do activities that she loves and that she’ll make friends with kids in the same clubs and groups.

What I don’t tell her is that the struggle to fit in will continue.

I can think of just a couple times in my life where it wasn’t so hard. Ironically, one of them was during middle school. Somehow, I was in the “popular” group. I don’t know how it happened because we were not wealthy, I wore mostly second-hand clothes, I was not considered pretty, my family situation was different than “normal” (my mother was divorced and had recently announced that she was gay), and I was the new kid. We had moved to a small city in Vermont from Springfield, Mass. By middle school girl standards, I should have been an outcast. But they accepted me.

The real struggle to fit in started in eighth grade when my mother moved us to a tiny nearby town — Roxbury, Vt. I had to leave my “girls” behind and start all over again — new house, new school, new people to try to befriend. On top of that, now I was living in the country! That’s no place for a city mouse like me.