Finding My Tribes

 I've always felt a bit like an outsider, maybe only to myself, but I could never shake the feeling that I didn't quite belong. I remember spending most of my energy in my youth and a great portion of my early adult life trying to fit in.

I've now hit the age, or lost the energy or desire to continue this farce and settled into my own weirdness. Their is a profound satisfaction in embracing your oddities. I relish my uniqueness, my quirks and foibles (especially my foibles), and have discovered that it is so much easier, liberating and satisfying to be authentic and a bit wackadoodle, than it is to sustain the effort to fit into some frame of normalcy. 

While I am finding freedom and strength of embracing my weirdness, I find that despite not fitting in on the whole, I have places and tribes of other weirdos where I fit in beautifully. Here are a few:

The Kitchen:

I cooked to support myself in school and have done it ever since. Anthony Bourdain, likened working in a kitchen to being on a pirate ship, where you are surrounded by social deviants + criminals (mostly true) who are thoroughly different from one another, but we all band together for the sake of cooking; and I've always thought this a good description. I feel at home in a kitchen, where we are all freaks, together.

The Bike + Surf Shop:

I am never the coolest dude in either of these places (nor am I likely to be), but the fraternity, the camaraderie, of nutty people, doing quasi-dangerous things tends to make everyone feel at home. Everyone bonds over a shared passion; it has nothing to do with how good you are at it, but simply the fact that you love it too.

The Tennis Court:

It's been one of the sports that I've played the longest and the history I have with tennis, bred a comfort that makes me feel like I belong no matter where I am or what court I step out on. Your skills and talents give you instant notoriety in certain circles, so if you have a knack for basket-weaving, I'm pretty sure you can find a tribe of basket-weavers to call your own.

The Coffee Shop:

I willingly pay through the nose for highfalutin iced coffee because I love the environment of a coffee shop. I love the noise, the sounds and smells, and especially the people-watching. It is one of the last places where I am shockingly distracted and productive at the same time. But we're all in it together, all jacked up on caffeine and exchanging witty banter and jittery smiles. 

I've finally become brave enough to own and share my weirdness out of some cathartic sense to prove to people how out there I am (or at least how out there I feel)...Only to discover they're all just as weird as I am...and it feels nice.