TOW: Belonging

It's been a rough couple weeks.  I've had not enough sleep, not enough exercise, too much to do, and not enough time to do the things I want.  But, all this 'missing time' has got me thinking about things that I love doing, and things that I'm currently doing.

On the bright side of things, I'm currently doing a lot of the things I love.  I had a great night tutoring a new kid (he's in grade 1) and went for a great run and the work I'm doing at work is interesting, different and challenging.  I have great friends, and lately I've been so social I've been double-booking myself.  All is well with the world.

On the not-so-bright-side, there's a lot of change around me, and not all of it is a good change.   I have never felt so good at what I do while still feeling like I don't really fit in.  I don't fit into this city, I don't fit into the culture, I'm not sure how I'm fitting in at work these days, and I'm eventually not going to fit into these jeans if I keep eating myself out of every emotional crisis I have. 

Sad to say, I'm at one of those times in life where you feel like you don't fit in, you don't belong, and you don't know how to fix it. 

I think if this had happened to me in university, I would have found a way around it, and turned it into a good thing.  I did more than this, and I think I surpassed my expectations in this regard.

I think if this had happened to me in Belgium (and it did happen to me in Belgium) I would find like-minded non-fitters....and I did.

But Toronto is a big city.  You could almost call Toronto the city of people that never fit in.  They never seem to say things quite right, the people I meet here are friendly but distant, especially for Canadians.  I'm getting older, and I don't have too many more 'reinvent your life' phases left in me.  I've used up about three of them in the last five years, so I'd really rather not go back to that.  I want to start building a life that feels significant to me.

In some ways, I'm in the adult phase where it's like puberty all over again.  Your body doesn't make any sense to you, you always seem to say the wrong thing, you don't feel good or confident and everything just seems to be changing too fast for you to finesse things in a way that would make you appear, nice, wise and good.  Instead, you come off looking like a pretentious, stressed-out, stuck-up something-something with rage issues.  (Yes, I'm talking about me.)

But right now it's all about how well the things in my life fit with my vision of a good life for me. 

And very, very select few things are holding me together these days.  I think I'm ready for some positive change.