"Out of Place"
"I'm trying to find myself," he said.
"If I had a mirror I could end your search," I replied.
He was serious. So are many others who feel that they
are on a constand search for who they are.
I thought about opening a travel agency just for people who
need to find themselves. I realized it wouldn't work out because
all I'd be doing is booking a room in their house. That's where they are.
I'd could just tell them to hop in my car and then take them there.
Or maybe to where they work. Some people spend so much time at
work that they never leave it there, they take it home, on vacation,
to family gatherings and wonder why they can't find themselves.
I could open a detective agency. That would be mysterious. I could
get one of those bowl pipes and a large magnifying glass. Then I
could charge them a huge fee and after I know the check cleared
make them stand in front of my office mirror.
"There you are!"
You see, I thought I was searching for myself for most of my life.
I thought I really was lost somewhere and couldn't find my way back.
"Bobby, do that thing with the basket and the napkin. You know, where
you put the napkin on your head and skip around holding a basket of
fake plastic fruit."
I'd do it and everyone would laugh.
That was me.
I could also find myself in the corner of my bedroom next to a pole lamp.
Remeber pole lamps?
I'd be pretending to play a guitar I had, while one of the lights was
shining down on me. I'd sing along with the Beatles, Chad and Jeremy
or the Dave Clark Five.
That was me.
Even then I was searching for who I was. I guess I've been searching all
my life. That is until this very moment. Today, just a few minutes ago
I realized that I had been wasting my time. How silly I was to think that
I had to find myself.
The truth is I know who I am, I really have known all of my life. I didn't need
to find myself, I needed to find where I belonged.
I was searching, not for me, but for a place. A place where someone like me
could fit in. All this time I was thinking I didn't know who I was, but I did. I knew
exactly who I was, I just needed to find a place, friends, family and strangers who
understood me and accept me for who I am.
This might appear trite, as silly, foolish thinking, but it's not. It makes perfect
sense to me. Maybe to you, too.
If you are feeling lost, confused and thinking you may be going out of your mind,
you may find peace in believing that you are not out of your mind, you are simply
out of place.
Oh, I know I can fit in places when I need to. I know I can hold a conversation
with anyone I don't particularly enjoy speaking with and make them feel like
I really do.
That's who I am, too.
I can honestly say that no one in my life really knows who I am but me. They think
they do...they don't.
Like the old phrase "putting a square peg in a round hole..."
The British novelist Edward Bulwer Lytton published the metaphor in a late 19th century book:
Kenelm Chillingly asks, "Does it not prove that no man, however wise, is a good judge of his
own case? Now, your son's case is really your case --- you see it through the medium of
your likings and dislikings, and insist upon forcing a square peg into a round hole, because
in a round hole you, being a round peg, feel tight and comfortable. Now I call that irrational."
The farmer responded, "I don't see why my son has any right to fancy himself a square peg
... when his father, and his grandfather, and his great-grandfather, have been round pegs;
and it is agin' nature for any creature not to take after its own kind."
-- Edward Bulwer Lynton in Kenelm Chillingly, His Adventures and Opinions (1873).[2]
(source Wikipedia)
So, if you have been in search of who you are, stop it! You know who you are. Start looking
for where you fit in.
You can't be all things to all people, but you can be who you are right where you find
your place, your happiness.
Look around. You might find me there, too.
©2011
By Bob Perks
