I've never really felt like I've been part of a group, somehow, someway, I'm always a bit of an outsider that doesn't quite match everyone around me. I've never felt like I've really worked up to being a member of a group. I've tried. I've tried my best to feel like I'm one of a group, I've even tried to lead groups before, but I've never actually felt like I was part of a group.
The problem is, I've never been 100% in a group. No matter what I join, no matter what I do, I'm always doing something else on the side that doesn't really quite match up between groups. Even with my jobs, I've never really felt like I was one of the group, I was just an interloper that worked with a group of people who were a solid group, and I was only visiting. I would work, but I would rarely bring work home with me and make work part of my life. The biggest stretch out of this was Thanksgiving last year where I invited one person who didn't have a family to be with for Thanksgiving to my house for some turkey.
Sports teams, the few I've been on, is the same system. I am on the team, but really I'm not because I was never part of the team. I'd show up, I'd come to practice, and I'd do the drills, but to do anything outside of practice with part of the team, or to include that team as anything other than being a team, that never happened. I never hung out with people on swim team, and heaven forbid that I ever talked to anyone outside of tennis when I was on that team.
Church is the same story. I'm there, I'm involved, I teach classes, I read the scriptures, I attend as much as possible, but it is a rarity that I've never witnessed when I felt part of the group. It always feels like everyone else around me is part of the group, they know each other, they get along, they organize play dates with their children, everyone does everything together and knows what's going on, and I'm sitting on the outside trying my best to fit in and doing horribly at it. Even when talking about doctrine and the understanding of what the church even stands for I don't feel like I'm one of the people. Everyone around me has such strict conservative views of how the church thinks, but I don't see it that way, and I don't see the doctrine that actually supports that. I don't see why I have to be republican to be a member, I don't understand why there is such a stigma against helping the poor and needy, and I certainly believe that there needs to be a separation between church and state. I don't think that Christian views have to be enforced by my government, because if the tables were turned and was living in a Muslim society I would hate to have external beliefs outside of my own system of religion pushed on me just because the majority of people in that area believe a specific way.
Even while teaching with my current job, I'm not one of the people there. I like teaching. I like my classes, but I do not feel like I'm part of LDSBC, I feel like I'm something that can be replaced and put away at the drop of a hat just because they don't need my any more. I have no contract with LDSBC for a long period of time, I have a contract for this semester, and I have to hope and pray that they like me enough to involve me next semester.
Some people try to say that everyone goes through this. That no matter where you are in your life that you never find a group that you're truly part of, but I don't think that's true. You talk to certain people about what they're really passionate about, something that defines them, and they are perfect in that group. You talk to a true blooded NASCAR fan, and they are part of it. They are built into the system, they like everything about it, and they couldn't be happier. To them, they are home.
I've yet to really find that place, where I am there, that I'm a member of the group. There are hints of it in everything that I do, there are hints of feeling like I get what the group is doing as I play my cello in an orchestra, or when I'm at a huge party listening to music, or even when I'm going to church. There are moments when I think I'm starting to finally get in on the big group and becoming one of the group (which I really want to do) but then something comes up, I get awkward, and I nope out and realize that I'm not one of the group.
The stupid part about this is that I know where that group of people are, I just have no clue if I could ever hit the requirements to make it into that group, and am seriously afraid that possibly, just some how, I've shot myself in the foot so many times that the potential of me ever getting close to that group is nigh impossible.
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