Having a Sally Field Moment

This morning my friend, Dawn, published this post. About me, of all people! When she told me that she wanted to turn her list into a blog post and asked if it was ok with me, I said sure. I admit, I was curious. But more than anything, I was really flattered. She likes me! She really likes me!

I’ve spent a lot of years of my life feeling like an outcast. Heck, I think there’s members of my family that don’t like me all that much. I feel like it started way back in first grade. I switched from public school to private school that year so I knew no one in my class. I also started school about two weeks late due to health issues. So, by the time I got to school friendships had formed and I was the weird kid. I went to that school with the same 40 kids for the next 12 years; I never stopped being the weird kid who no one liked and the popular girls picked on. When I got to be a teenager, I was the girl that no boy admitted to liking because that was social suicide. I got called ‘ugly’ a lot so I never thought I was pretty at all.

Don’t get me wrong, I had a few friends and my best friend is still my best friend to this day. But the people I became close to – none of them were people in that first grade class I walked into two weeks late.

I had high hopes for college. I was a single student on a campus of 40,000. Surely I could find My People there! I thought I did for awhile but then it turned out they didn’t like me all that much after all. I can’t even really say WHY the friendships fell apart but they did.

After college, my life went through a monumental upheaval and in the 18 months after graduation, I moved 3 times, broke off an engagement, met someone new, got engaged again, and settled in Pittsburgh. Where I knew no one but Scot.

Slowly my circle of friends grew, first through Scot, then through work. Eventually I found Twitter and lo and behold! THAT is where My People reside! I started venturing out from under my rock a little bit to meet people in person.

One of the first people I met was Dawn. I don’t know how to explain it except to say that Dawn’s friendship means the world to me. She is the sister of my heart. After so many years of feeling ostracized, to know that someone I love and respect so much thinks that I’m a good person – well, that’s just the best feeling in the world.