I was quite lucky during my childhood years, although at the time I couldn’t see it.
My parents were successful in business and as a result we had one of the nicest houses in the neighbourhood, complete with swimming pool and sauna. Back then, in the small village in England where I was raised, that was a big deal. I should have been on cloud nine but instead of making me happy, these luxuries were the bane of my existence.
My classmates would taunt me and call me ‘snob’ while all I wanted to do more than anything was to fit in. I would go home at night and complain to my parents but instead of sympathising with me my father would deliberately drop me inside the school gates in his Rolls Royce. His attempt at humour, but to me it wasn’t funny.
When I turned fourteen something happened that I saw as a light at the end of the tunnel…we were moving to Florida. I was so happy to be moving to a place where everyone had swimming pools. Finally! I was going to live in a place where I would fit in and be the same as everyone else. Boy was I wrong!
On the first day of school it became apparent that I was very different. All of the girls had long feathered hair a la Farrah Fawcett, whilst mine was short and funky a la 80’s UK pop stars. Before lunch on my first day I had what seemed like thousands of high school kids surrounding me asking me to ‘say their name’ as they liked my ‘cool’ accent.
I embarrassed myself in my first art class by asking the boy next to me if he had a rubber I could use (how was I supposed to know). Everyone wanted to know if I knew the Queen and one boy even asked me if they had hair in England.
It seemed as if I would never find a place to ‘fit’.
Eventually I decided to use my differences to my advantage.
I deliberately dressed outrageous (we are talking black lipstick outrageous) and put on the strongest cockney accent, even though I had hardly ever been near London! Soon enough, everyone wanted to be friends with the ‘cool’ girl from London.
Party invitations came pouring in and everyone wanted to be seen hanging out with me.
I couldn’t have been more different but I realised that instead of trying to change to fit in, I should celebrate my individuality and use it to my benefit.
With this enlightened attitude I had finally found a place to fit.
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