The Outsider

I know that what I’ll be writing here now is coming through the distorted lens of depression, which has been exacerbated this past week or two by the time of year as well as some particular circumstances of my own. I also know that the solution lies, at least partly, in getting out of my head to stop the rumination, and that I can achieve this in several practical ways (exercising; doing practical things that have some immediate, concrete outcome; getting back into reading more and feeding my mind in general; maybe adjusting my dose of antidepressants). But in this moment, I need to write how I feel, to get it all off my chest, before I go plunge into the swimming pool, get into my body, and hopefully out of my head at least for a little bit. 

I feel like I’m constantly the outsider and haven’t built anything lasting of my own. 

I am extremely grateful for all the lovely friends and fun buddies that I have, and very thankful to them for including me in their activities, in some cases even for letting me be part of their family. It brings me a lot of joy and sense of belonging and even of being loved and useful. I guess it gives my life some “meaning”. 

However, none of these are my own family or my own group or a community that I have built: none of this is something I have built, something that will stay with me for the rest of my life, something of which I can feel proud. I’m just the “extra person”, the “addition”, someone they generously include.

Over the course of the past twenty years or so, I have built a few deep relationships and/or situations in which I wasn’t the outsider but very much an insider (apart from all the wonderful friendships that I still have scattered over a couple continents): three important romantic relationships; the groups of friends in college and grad school (especially the latter); two jobs where I actively built a group working together. But none of these have lasted. I walked away from each of the three romantic relationships and haven’t been able to build any more for over five years now. The friends groups from university came to a natural end just as life moved on. One job I quit when I moved to California (and I don’t regret that). The other job has placed a glass-ceiling in my way, which was a huge disappointment for me both professionally and personally, so I’ll have to walk away from that, too, eventually. 

In my current group of climbing buddies — as nice and fun as they are — I am and always will be the outsider because I was a later addition to a group of people who’ve known each other, and some even lived together, for years. 

A standard family with kids of my own isn’t, and has never been, on my “wish list”. 

Lasting, healthy romantic relationships seem to be outside of my skill set. 

And my career is completely uncertain to me now.

If building lasting family/romantic relationships and/or having steady careers are the measures of “success”, then I’m definitely a failure.