Fitting in can be quite hard. Especially when you’re trying to fit in a city, state, or country that is not your own. So now imagine moving from country to country and not looking or acting like anyone around you.
Growing up I moved a considerable amount, that meant changing schools, having new friends and spending another year trying to act and look the part. Every attempt I did at pretending to be someone I was supposed to be failed.
The time I spent living in Marseille, France I told myself I didn’t fit in because I looked too much like my Venezuelan father. He looks like your stereotypical Hispanic man, brown eyes, brown hair and a slight tan to his skin. I told myself once you move to Venezuela your curls, your brown hair and your short legs will make you look the part. While my French friends were tall, skinny and were blessed with skin that resembled the complexion of models. But somehow, some way I didn’t let my looks get to me. I made new friends, and I accepted that while I would never look like I belonged this was still my home and people loved me for who I was. I didn’t fit in, but I thrived, grew, and made memories of a lifetime.
Fast forward to my teen years, and I find myself living in Caracas, Venezuela. I dreamed of a classroom filled with girls that would look like myself, and have the same loud and extroverted personality. But once again my dreams of fitting in were crushed. The girls in my school were thin, tall and all had pin straight hair with light blonde highlights, that gave them a summer glow all year round. This time around realizing I didn’t fit in at the one place I imagined I would be a perfect fit in made me feel self-conscious. For a while I tried hard to look like them, dieting and straightening my hair every day, but it never worked.
Having my dreams of fitting in crushed made me realized something important. It’s not how you fit in or even if you fit in, its what you make out of the places and situations life hands you. I never fit in until I got to college and saw that most my sorority sisters at the time looked like me. I thrived during my times of being an outcast, and I worked harder than anyone else to prove that I deserved to be heard. Don’t let the fear of being different stop you from being your true self everywhere you go. It’s not what you look like that makes you worth it, its what you make of yourself that matters.