The Safety of fitting in

My dream last night brought me back twenty years to the hollowed halls of my all-girls Catholic school nightmare. I was a senior in high school and had finally made the cheerleading team.

For context, I had tried out for the cheerleading team going into high school because I had a deep insecurity about having friends. I experienced being outcasted in seventh grade and was traumatized by the idea of feeling that way again. I became determined to do everything in my power to never end up in that position again. And honestly, I carried that fear with me for the next decade of my life.

To end the suspense, I didn’t make the team.

Instead, I joined the drama club. Unlike cheerleading, they couldn’t really turn anyone away. There was space for everyone. And I mean everyone. The ensemble was forty-plus people deep. There was even a 45-year-old man in it for some reason, which feels mildly disturbing looking back.

But don’t worry, I was never a theater kid either. I was never quite committed enough to develop the delusion that I was God’s gift to the acting world. While I never had a starring role, I thought being on stage would somehow give me the validation I so clearly desired. Being the salt shaker in Beauty and the Beast (yes, that’s actually a role) shockingly did not provide me with that either.

So that’s why having this dream felt strange. It’s been twenty years since I tried out, and I honestly haven’t thought much about high school in years. Or at least I thought I hadn’t.

Back to the dream. I was ecstatic to make the team. I felt like I was finally accepted. There was an air around me, like I had finally become one of them. Except when I looked around, everyone but one person had made the team. Oddly enough, she didn’t even seem particularly upset by it. I should have taken that as a hint.

The shine wore off almost immediately. The goal I had built up in my mind suddenly didn’t feel nearly as meaningful as I thought it would. It felt like as long as I checked the right boxes and conformed to what the coaches wanted, I would be accepted. And once the excitement of being chosen faded, the reality started to settle in.

Did I actually want this? Or did I just want the feeling of finally being chosen?

I also remember how eerily Truman Show-esque it all felt. Everyone looked like carbon copies of one another. But there was safety in that. The very thing I had spent years yearning for. If you fit the mold, you were accepted. Chosen. Protected. Maybe it didn’t fulfill you, but it fit neatly into a story people knew how to admire.

You were safe.

I started thinking about where the phrase “peaked in high school” comes from. Maybe people don’t actually miss high school itself. Maybe they miss the last time belonging felt effortless.

Luckily for me, I never felt safe in high school, so I can confidently say I did not peak there. I floated between friend groups trying to fit in and don’t have a single friend from high school today. That’s weird. At least it feels weird. I watch movies where people stay friends for life and see women on Instagram with twenty bridesmaids from high school. Their children become best friends. They have built-in communities. Their lives appear stable, connected, almost storybook-like. Sure, life still has its challenging moments as it does for everyone, but there’s comfort in remaining inside a familiar social structure. Maybe that’s why being chosen once felt so emotionally important to me.

But even in the dream, the feeling didn’t last long.

I was finally accepted, but why didn’t it solve all my problems? Why didn’t the anxiety go away? The fear of saying the wrong thing and losing everyone around me. The fear that the people I love most would quietly disapprove of the path I’m on.

I wanted to scream: I’m finally behaving the way you wanted me to. Why aren’t you satisfied?

I kept thinking that once I was finally chosen, something inside me would settle. That I would finally feel lovable. Secure.

But even in the dream, after finally getting the thing I thought I wanted, the feeling evaporated almost immediately.

It wasn’t until recently that I realized how much energy I had spent trying to become understandable to everyone. Trying to make my life make sense in ways other people could easily explain, admire or approve of. I kept trying to earn a sense of safety that couldn’t actually be granted by other people.

I think part of me always knew my path was going to be unconventional. I just didn’t know how to see that as a gift yet.

Maybe doing something different is finally listening to that inner voice you’ve spent years trying to override. Accepting that not everyone will be able to join you on the next part of your journey. Accepting that some paths only make sense from the inside.

I’ve stopped viewing being an outcast as something I need to fix. The things that once made me feel disconnected from other people are often the exact things pulling me toward the life I actually want. There’s almost a kind of obsession to it. A deep pull toward certain ideas, places and ways of living that I can’t seem to ignore, no matter how hard I try to be practical or reasonable about it. There’s a kind of tunnel vision to it. No matter how distracted or discouraged I become, I always seem to find my way back to myself.

For a long time, I interpreted that inability to fully settle into conventional paths as failure. As immaturity. As proof that something in me was fundamentally restless. But I think I was confusing conformity with alignment. I kept trying to force myself into lives that looked safe, understandable and socially legible, even when they felt hollow to me. I think that’s why they never worked. Some part of me always knew I was meant for something else.