Life on the Peripheral - I'm Standing Right Here! (How I Embraced Circling Normal)

Image by myshoun from Pixabay

I think this blog post - which I wrote a couple of years ago - will give you a good overview of who I am and what you can expect to hear from me. This is just the beginning of our friendship.

As someone who has spent her entire life on the peripheral, I know all about being a square peg in a round hole. As a beauteous, shy young woman who desperately wanted to fit in, I would never have thought to say anything that ran contrary to popular opinion.

If I kept my mouth shut, faked ‘normal’, smiled alluringly, and just stood there being impartial, I would not be in danger of committing popular suicide. But in the back of my mind, I knew I was tilting oh so slightly on the normalcy scale. At the time, I just didn’t realize that was actually a gift and not an obstacle to overcome.

As time passed, my struggle with self-image continued into middle age and I sought out someone to emulate. If my life story were to be made into a movie, who would I want to play me? The elegant Jane Seymour or the quirky Ellen Barkin?

Mrs. Perfect in Every Way
You know who she is. The woman who always gets voted to chair the committee, the one most admired for her skills at — well, everything! Women clamor around her hoping her wonderfulness might rub off on them or, dare I say, be invited into her inner circle of BFFs.

You just know if you knocked on her door at 2 a.m., she would greet you as if expecting company: hair stylishly messy, designer housecoat with matching glass slippers, benevolent, honey-sweet words greeting you from her well-defined cupid’s bow lips.

She was Olivia de Havilland to my Bette Davis. Catch me at 2 a.m. and you would be greeted by a disheveled Marilyn Manson. She is the one everyone says, “She’s just so nice. Let’s make her our leader.” I hated her yet wanted to be just like her.​

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