The Wanderer’s Circle

All through my school days, I could slip into any circle. The band nerds, the preppy kids, the football players, even the lonely outsiders (my favorite ones). If I wanted in, all I had to do was try — and they’d let me. I knew their jokes, picked up their slang, slid into their rhythm like I’d always been there. Human universal remote.

But I was never all the way there. Always orbit, never core. I could float in and out of tables like a traveler passing through, welcomed but never fully claimed.

By high school, the circles only multiplied. Whoever I was “going out with” at the time came with their own group, their own rules, their own language to learn. I bounced between all of them like it was a sport — lots of options, lots of opportunities to finally land where I belonged. Spoiler alert: I didn’t. And through it all, I noticed something: I always felt more at home with men than women. Which is tricky when what you’re really after is companionship, not another boyfriend (not always ). With girls, I felt like I was cosplaying — tiptoeing around my weird humor so I didn’t spook anyone. Boys thought it was funny, or at least harmless.

Back then, I thought my open-mindedness was the flaw. I didn’t burn hard enough for one single thing to be branded by it. I was never just preppy, or just band nerd, or just anything. I was the “also” girl — as in, “she’s cool, she’s also here.” I could blend but never belong. And so I learned to bounce — not because I couldn’t fit in, but because every group was too closed off for how open I really was.

It took me until almost thirty to see it: I wasn’t lost. I wasn’t broken. I was vast. I was whole. And the bouncing wasn’t failure — it was training. I was learning how to hold multitudes, how to see the overlaps, how to become a world instead of a box.

Now I stand in my own circle — messy, loud, imperfect, but mine. And it feels like home.