But there is fitting in, and then there is belonging. I used to think they were the same thing, but now I realize that they are completely different.
Fitting in is acting. It's adopting the personalities of the people around me and becoming like them.
Belonging is living. Belonging is finding a place where you don't have to try to fit in, you just do. Belonging is finding people who like you for who you actually are.
Up until very recently I thought I had that. The feeling of belonging, a place I should be, and people that I should be with. But I was wrong.
These people, this place, all the things that I think about when I imagine who I am, all of it existed before I did. I simply happened across it by chance, and it adopted me for a while.
But I don't belong there.
I'm an intruder in that world, I just stepped in and tried to make it my own. But that whole thing still functions without me in it. It does more than function, it thrives. It grows and everyone in it is happy.
I don't belong there anymore, if I ever did to begin with. When I try to go back to how I remember things, go back to when I belonged and was happy, I throw off the balance of the whole thing.
I've realized now that chasing after the pay when I was almost happy, when I thought I beloged, is a pointless venture and I don't just mess things up for me, I ruin them for other people too.
I don't want to give up trying, because then I won't have anything to look forward to anymore, and I really need something. But I'm going to distance myself from it all. Slowly.
Maybe that way when the end finally comes I won't be upset about it.
I say that but I know for a fact I will still be upset.
I was a visitor and now it's time to leave.
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