By Galilea Oregon

I do not fit. Sometimes I feel like the wrong puzzle piece, too big and awkward to fit. I do not fit. I am stuck between learning to accept solitude and seeking validation and acceptance. I respond to text messages right away on some days, and on others I ignore every single one. I sit on the pavement during lunch with a group of people that know me but don’t. I text, Snapchat, DM, dozens of people, but I feel little comfort in those casual conversations which seem to lead…nowhere.

 
I do not fit. I chime in classroom discussions, stuttering about fate and destiny and the human perception of reality and love and time, only to be followed by absolute silence or remarks of mockery as I walk out the door at the end of class. “Time isn’t real,” no, it’s really not.

 
I do not fit. But I write. I write until my pen gives out, I write until my battered journals are full with angry rants or beautiful poems scrawled away in illegible chicken scratch. I type away Instagram captions, short essays about my fears, my secrets, my broken heartedness, my friends, my dreams. I write about love and home and feelings that are too gritty to be spoken words.

 
I do not fit. I thought I was alone but I really am not. I thought it was just me, stuck inside a bubble of secret solitude and fear, but fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on one’s perspective) it is not only me who does not fit. There are many of us, the thinkers, the poets, the artists, the philosophers, the writers, the dreamers who do not fit, and somehow in between the uncomfortable not-fitting, we find comfort and confidants in each other.

 
Somehow, at the most confusing and saddening moments of my life, I found them. Because of them, I am slowly learning to accept that not fitting into the mold of the average teenager does not mean it is the end of the world.

 

It is perfectly fine to feel stuck in between two worlds, to have friends who are not really friends because instead of looking down you gaze up and dream about the stars. It is perfectly fine to feel lost and confused and maybe even arrogant because you cannot relate to others, because you are focused on the future, because you want something more than just here, you dream of something out there. It is perfectly fine to feel passionately, to express yourself in classroom debates, regardless of whether or not others agree with you. It is perfectly fine to be genuine, to be raw, to be honest. It is perfectly fine to be who you are.

 
You may not fit. You may dream of something bigger, you may feel more deeply, you may see beyond the film that separates inert words from intangible and abstract things. But you are not alone, you are not by yourself, so dream on. You are not a neglected puzzle piece. You are a star, blazing hot, luminous point in the sky, part of something so much bigger and breathtaking. So dream, dream on. You may not fit, but you were never meant to.