Feeling “weird”

We can’t buy belonging, but that doesn’t stop us from trying. 

#TransparentTuesdays

The year I turned 30, I bought a whole bunch of uncharacteristically femme stuff: colorful dresses, dangly earrings, pretty crystals, and sexy lingerie.

It was part of an intentional decision to try to finally find, embrace, and express my feminine side, once and for all. 

I’d spent decades feeling like I wasn’t the “right kind of woman,” or wasn’t “feminine enough,” because I’d never felt drawn to the sorts of things girls and women around me had always seemed drawn to. Other women fantasized about finding “the one,” planning their wedding day, and being mothers, while I fantasized about traveling the world, building a business, and being non-monogamous. I wasn’t nurturing, sweet, or selfless, I hated taking care of people, and I took no pleasure in flowers, chocolate, or babies. 

None of the things that were “supposed to feel right” as a woman had ever felt right for me, and even though I didn’t exactly try to hide these “not right” parts of myself, I felt like I was constantly trying to downplay, justify, and make up for them. I wanted to connect with people so badly, and these parts of me always seemed to get in the way of that, even when the way I talked about them was purely theoretical! I couldn’t even imagine how much more isolated I would feel if I ever put them into practice, and I was very much hoping I’d never have to find out. 

Looking back I can see that I hadn’t yet come to accept or embrace the fact that I’m gender non-conforming, polyamorous, queer, kinky, and non-traditional in pretty much all other ways. But at the time I just felt weird, and I hated it.

My feeling of weirdness, and the sense that there was something deeply wrong with me, was obviously about way deeper stuff than dresses and jewelry. I felt like an outsider and a freak, because so much of my deepest truth was out of sync with the world around me, and I was desperate to relieve the constant tension I felt between authenticity and belonging. But trying to become a whole different person is hard, and buying dresses and jewelry is easy… so I figured I’d give it a shot. 

With that in mind, I embarked on an experiment to figure out if I could shop my way into being “normal.” I thought maybe a very traditional version of me was just hidden super deep down, waiting to be let out. I thought maybe all my weird urges and desires were actually some kind of trauma response or pathology, and that I could heal those parts of me away by looking and acting the part. 

This is so embarrassing to admit, but I was genuinely hoping all those problematic witchy women’s coaches who talk about “healing your feminine” would be right, and that if only I could stop trying to control everything I would suddenly find purpose, pleasure, and fulfillment in a more conventional life. 

Listen, I know this story makes me sound unforgivably naive and weak, but please understand that I was exhausted from feeling so weird and wrong. I knew I wouldn’t be able to live with the constant tension and friction for much longer, so I had to either face, embrace, and integrate all these parts of me (which would have meant putting those parts of me into action and feeling like even more of an outsider), or else… try to change them. 

Can you blame me for clinging to a little magical thinking here? If my plan had worked, and there had been a traditional, feminine, “normal” version of me deep down just waiting to be set free, life would have been so much easier. 

As I’m sure you’ve already guessed by now, my plan didn’t work. There wasn’t some traditional, feminine, “normal” version of me deep down just waiting to be set free, because… well, because of course there wasn’t. 

I spent the better part of a year trying to “connect to and heal my feminine” before declaring the experiment a failure, and moving on. I put all the femme clothes I hated into storage, and got down to work on plan B: accepting, embracing, and living out the full truth of who I am. 

Sigh.

Recently, one of my clients started getting a little obsessed with the idea of trying Botox or fillers for the first time, but couldn’t figure out why it suddenly seemed so important. As it turns out, she’d been feeling like there’s something wrong with her deep down; that she’s weird and different and doesn’t belong, due to recently discovering that she is neurodivergent. She was terrified that “coming out” about her diagnosis might cost her job, and that if she really accepted it, she might even need to change careers entirely. 

As a result, she’d been in a sort of “magical thinking” phase herself, refusing to accept the diagnosis and desperately wishing she could just get herself to be “normal,” when the urge to get Botox and fillers hit. 

This is actually a very common pattern, and I see it in my coaching practice all the time– we try to “treat” or “fix” a deep feeling that we’re not quite what we’re supposed to be, by spending money and changing the way we look.

The truth is that evolutionarily, we’re wired for connection and belonging, so it feels incredibly scary, painful, and isolating to be “weird” or different. But our society isn’t set up to handle the range, nuance, and complexity of the individual human spirit, so we all have parts of ourselves that don’t quite fit the mold; parts of ourselves that feel like a square peg trying to fit into a round hole, and that make us wish we could just be freakin’ normal. 

It would be so much easier if we could… if we could somehow file down the sharp edges of our square selves until we fit. If putting on the costume was enough to make us feel “normal.” If wearing dresses and getting Botox magically turned us into the kind of person for whom society seems to fit. 

But we can’t, and it isn’t. No matter how hard we rail against the truth of who we are deep down, and no matter how hard we try to change or erase it, in the end we’re always left with plan B: doing the hard and terrifying work of accepting and embracing ourselves. 

I am happy to report that I am now weirder than ever, having embraced and embodied my own unique brand of authentic weirdness, and I still have access to deep connection and belonging. Not everywhere, and not with everyone, but in some places and with some people…and in ways that feel infinitely deeper, richer, and more fulfilling, because all of me is welcome there.

And ultimately, that’s what belonging really is.

Big hug,

Jessi