Being 6’7″, I’ve spent most of my adult life not fitting into shit.
Airplane seats. Cars. Hotel beds. Clothing racks. Doorways occasionally become an unexpected adventure. At six-foot-seven, “one size fits all” has always felt a little fucking optimistic.
Physically not fitting somewhere is pretty easy to recognize. The other kind takes longer.
I’ve been in plenty of rooms over the years where I wasn’t sure I belonged. Sometimes because I didn’t know anybody. Sometimes because everyone else seemed to know more than I did. And sometimes because I was convinced everyone else had somehow received an instruction manual that I had missed.
Working at the SBDC was one of those experiences at first. When I started, I felt a little out of place. I was among people who were giants in their fields, and I had just graduated from college. I had done some volunteer work at the SBDC as part of my degree at LCC, so I knew the people I was working with, but knowing someone and believing you belong at the same table with them are two very different things.
I remember wondering what exactly I had to offer these people.
They had years of experience. They knew business. They knew counseling. They could answer questions that I hadn’t even thought to ask yet.
And there I was.
Eventually something changed. I started answering questions. Then people started asking me questions. I started working with businesses, then teaching classes, and eventually helping other people figure out things they weren’t sure they could do.
Nobody ever pulled me aside and said, Congratulations, Jason. You officially belong here now.
I just stopped wondering whether I did.
That was one of the first times in a long time that I remember really feeling like I had found a place where I belonged. Not because I suddenly knew everything everyone else knew, but because I realized I didn’t have to. I brought something different to the room, and that was okay.
Getting into amateur radio gave me some of that same feeling.
My first few times going to club meetings were intimidating. I’d leave with this bobble-head feeling from nodding along while trying to process the ridiculous amount of knowledge some of the old “Elmers” had accumulated over the years.
Antennas. Propagation. Repeaters. Digital modes. Radios I’d never heard of. Acronyms inside other acronyms.
Ham radio people fucking love acronyms.
I felt like a complete noob because, well, I was.
Then the club president came over to greet me. Big smile, heart of gold, and he told me something along the lines of, “Even noobs have a place in the cycle. Everyone has to learn at their own pace.”
That stuck with me.
He didn’t tell me to come back when I knew more. He didn’t hand me a test to determine whether I was sufficiently nerdy to associate with the other radio nerds. I was interested. I wanted to learn.
Apparently that was enough.
I felt like I was part of the pack.
Maybe that’s one of the things I’ve misunderstood about belonging. I used to think you had to earn your way into it somehow. Know enough. Accomplish enough. Be useful enough. Prove that you deserved your chair at the table.
But the places where I’ve felt like I belonged the most weren’t necessarily the places where I was the most accomplished.
They were the places where I was allowed to show up unfinished.
I’m starting to understand that one of the nicest feelings in a relationship isn’t simply being wanted. It’s being able to show up as yourself.
The photographer. The dad. The guy who swears at Raspberry Pis. The guy who can talk about something painful and five minutes later make a completely inappropriate joke. The guy who occasionally wants to chase Tupperware through the woods using satellites.
There are serious parts of me and ridiculous parts. There are things I’m confident about and other things I’m still figuring the fuck out. There are pieces of my past that made me who I am and new pieces I’m still discovering.
And instead of thinking, I should probably tone some of this shit down, I can just be me.
I think that’s one of the things I appreciate about my relationship with my girl. I don’t feel like I have to present some carefully edited version of myself to her. She gets the whole weird package.
And I’m getting to know the whole package that is her too.
We’re learning each other’s quirks, histories, humor, worries, habits and all those little things you don’t learn about someone from the highlight reel. We’re figuring out what makes each other laugh, what makes us think, when to talk, when to listen and sometimes when just holding a hand says enough.
There is something really comfortable about being with someone and realizing you aren’t auditioning.
You already have the part.
Family is probably our first experience of belonging, but even that changes. When my boys were little, Dad was a pretty clearly defined job. Feed them. Protect them. Teach them things. Try not to completely screw them up.
Now they’re adults.
I’m still Dad, but the relationship evolves. I don’t need them to remain the little boys they were for us to remain a family. They get to become whoever they’re going to become, and I get to keep discovering who I am too.
Maybe that’s another part of belonging I didn’t understand when I was younger. Belonging doesn’t require everyone to stay the same.
The right people make room for you to change.
And you make room for them.
I’ve belonged to a lot of different groups during my life. Family. Workplaces. Photography communities. Amateur radio. Business counselors. Friends. There are people I know through geocaching and people I’ve met because I happened to be standing next to a horse with a camera.
None of those groups contain all of me.
Maybe they’re not supposed to.
For most of my life, I thought belonging meant finding the place where I fit. I’m starting to wonder if I’ve had that backward.
Maybe belonging is finding the places where I don’t have to worry about whether I fit.
Where I don’t have to know everything before I’m allowed to participate. Where I don’t have to hide the things I’m still learning. Where I can be serious one minute and completely ridiculous the next. Where the people around me don’t need me to become a different version of myself just to make them comfortable.
And maybe part of growing older is realizing I get to choose some of those places too.
I don’t have to fit everywhere.
That’s actually kind of a relief.
There are going to be rooms where I’m too much, not enough, too weird, too quiet, too loud, too inexperienced or just not somebody’s particular flavor of human.
That’s okay.
I spent enough years worrying about fitting into places that probably weren’t built for me in the first place.
I still don’t fit in airplane seats. My feet are still going to hang off hotel beds. “One size fits all” remains complete bullshit.
But I’m becoming much less interested in squeezing myself into places that weren’t made for me.
There are people in my life now where I don’t have to.
I can stretch out.
Well, emotionally anyway.
My feet are still hanging off the fucking bed.
Maybe that’s belonging.