A Lifetime of Feeling Like a Square Peg in a Round Hole

I have never fit in anywhere

Are you one of those people who feels like they never fit in anywhere? Well, welcome to the club for people who don’t fit in anywhere. Now you fit in somewhere. It’s kind of like the island of misfit toys but for writers.

As I approach what I hope to be the midway point in my life, I find myself reflecting back on the first 44 years or so. I go to my office, I stare at a monitor, and think of the gojillion other things I’d rather be doing. The cold, fluorescent light washes all the warmth from my spirit, and I make a cup of coffee to try to recover. The coffee can’t warm me back up.

Small talk is made in our kitchenette. Sometimes I’m part of the conversation, but most times I’m supporting cast or an extra. It’s been this way forever.

The small talk and relationship-building feel like a waste of time. The work I do feels like a waste of time. Not because I’m not good at my job, which coincidentally I’m not, but because I don’t fit in.

Wherever I go, I don’t fit.

I don’t fit in with the cool kids, the nerds, the jocks, the popular kids. I fall right in the middle of all of them, which means I don’t belong to any of them.

I am a good musician, but not the best. I’m not the greatest husband, but I’m full of love for my wife and family. I’m not your favorite employee, but I can get the job done. Ish.

But I’ve never cared to fit in at work. I don’t fit in with any of the groups within a company, the same as in school. I only work to get enough money to live my life, and I recognize I’m only making more money for someone else. They pay me just enough to keep me showing up every day. I’m transitioning from one position to another, and while this one has more potential and a lot more freedom, I doubt I’ll fully commit to it anyway. I don’t think I have it in me.

Why? Because it’s not my idea. I can’t make myself put my heart and soul into something I’m not passionate about.

Try as I might, I can only go so far. It’s why I’ve been deemed a survivor my whole life. I don’t particularly excel at anything, I survive.

I’m not the smartest person in the room, but I’m not the dumbest. I’m the guy that falls between the cracks. The guy in the periphery. The person in the room sucking up the same amount of oxygen as the rest of you. The faceless guy in the corner booth drinking coffee who you may not notice, but is there nonetheless.

From one of my all-time favorite stories:

I’m not the best at anything, and not the worst. I don’t have great ups and downs, I just survive. I’m in the middle. In my graduating class of two-hundred-eight, I was number one-hundred-four. Complete mediocrity. I used to describe myself as the most average, but that’s not average. I’m the averagest average. Everything I’ve done for my entire life sorta feels like, “Hey, that wasn’t terrible”, or, “That guy is pretty okay.” I hedge my bets and stay in my lane, which is incidentally on both sides of the road. — The Averagest Unsuperpower

The truth is that my heart isn’t in it. My heart has never been in something unless I wanted to do it for myself. Never in my life have I been told to do something and I put myself fully into it. I don’t even know what it looks like to really commit to something fully.

Like a salmon, I’ve spent my life swimming upstream, but I was never eaten by a bear, nor have I made it to the spawning pool. I just keep swimming for some reason. Nature, I guess.

But while I have never felt like I fit in anywhere, I DO feel like I fit in when I write and make art. Maybe it’s because those are solitary, meditative acts. Maybe that’s why writing and art are so important to me — because I only do them for myself. Writing will always be the hole where I can put my peg. You know what I mean.

THIS is my passion. Writing is one of the only things I’ve ever felt comfortable doing, and maybe that’s because the answer lies in being comfortable with myself and my own thoughts. It’s pure coincidence if it resonates with anyone else in the world. If so, that’s wonderful, but that’s not what I’m after.

I’ve never been one to have strong beliefs about anything. I lack conviction, but only because I like to maintain objectivity. It has never made sense to me to draw some arbitrary line in the sand only to know it will become a moot point with new evidence. The awareness that my opinions will change often prevents me from cementing them.

But the lack of conviction puts me in a weird space. I can converse with everyone about almost anything, but not in a place to be terribly close enough to anyone. The result is always feeling isolated, even within a connection. Square peg, again. I’ve always had to choose who I wanted to be close to, though I’ve been lucky to for the relationships I have. They are deep, meaningful, and lasting.

This is why my few real connections continue to be the most important partnerships in my life. They have carried me through all of the isolation.

Despite feeling isolated, at times I need to be alone. I’m still someone who is terrified of making eye contact while out for a walk, but then feels a million times better after exchanging a pleasant “hello” with someone. I’m the perfect introvert/extrovert.

When I was drinking I was an extrovert. I was always connecting people, making friends, having a good time. Since I’m no longer drinking, I’ve fallen back into who I really am, and I’m afraid I’m what I was before alcohol. Weird, average, and peripheral — but creative and loving.

But even worse is that I’m afraid everything I’ve done for the past 30 years was the other me. The party guy. The extrovert. The socialite. The inauthentic version of me.

Now I’m worried that I’m just a weird, lonely, sober creative who has to go to a job and do shit he doesn’t like every day. The one who is dying a slow, painful death by making someone else money. The one who never gets to stretch their creative wings because they’re too tired or busy to create beautiful things.

It scares me to think I want to quit my job because I know I’ll be unhappy doing any job where someone tells me what to do. Which is, you know, every job.

But it also scares me to make any creative passion a source of income. As soon as it becomes necessary to make money, it changes from a hobby to a job, therefore destroying the very thing it sought to provide.

I don’t have any answers and am simply exploring my own thoughts right here.

Tonight I’m in a weird place, but at least I have writing and creation. I think writing is the square hole I’ve been looking for my whole life.

No matter what, I’ll always have writing.