I no longer need to fit in...

The topic of "fitting in" came up the other day and it got me thinking (I know, you can see the smoke rising).  The basis of the topic was that in recovery we find a place we "fit in."  However, I haven't ever felt that connection to the program, it's a personal thing.  I started thinking about fitting in and how I spent my whole life feeling like I didn't fit in anywhere but desperately wanting to.  I was never comfortable enough in my own skin to fit in anywhere.  And when I was it depended on others opinions of me...if people liked me then I sort of fit in but if they didn't than there was something wrong with me.  Drugs and alcohol gave me the pseudo-comfort I thought I needed to fit in.  I thought they helped me to be comfortable in my own skin enough to feel like I belonged.  However, deep inside, I still didn't feel like I belonged because I knew that the mask I was showing the world wasn't me at all.  The truth was I only had this "idea" of who I was, I really had no clue.  I was just a scared little girl who was lost and wanted people to accept me for who I was.  Or so I thought.  True, I played out the "little girl lost" for most of my life but, I didn't so much want other people to accept me as much as I wanted to accept me.  That fear of not being accepted, liked, or loved was really a reflection of my internal world in which my spirit wanted me to wake up and see that I needed to accept, like, and love myself.  Once I no longer had the drugs and alcohol to hide behind and take comfort in, I had to face me.  I had to look at the illusion I had not only created, but also lost myself in.  I had to realize that all the self-induced drama, misery and chaos I constructed wasn't real.  None of it was, none of it is.  And what a blessing it has been to do that.  It's been 17 months now and how things have changed.  How far I've come from that scared little girl who just wanted to be enough.  How amazing to come to a place in which the good opinions of others matter less and less everyday.  To come to a place where I accept me, I love me, and I fit into me...that is truly a blessing.  I no longer need to fit in.  What was I trying to fit into anyway?  Other people's perceptions of who I "should" be?  And my perceptions of what I thought other people wanted me to be?  That's just too much work.  And it's also not a life, it's a miserable excuse for an existence.  Why should I allow other people to define my truth and tell me who I "should" or "shouldn't" be?  Why give anyone else that much power over me?  Behavior like that is just no longer acceptable to me.  Finally, I am accepting myself more and more everyday.  Do I do it perfectly? No.  I find myself doing things to get people to like me and then I catch myself and remind myself that things like that no longer serve my soul.  Situations like that are opportunities for me to see that behaviors like that just aren't me anymore.  They serve to make sure I'm learning that lesson.    And I finally feel like I am, slowly, one step at a time, embracing who I am becoming and it is perhaps one of the most exciting phases of my journey.  Realizing who I am always becoming and embracing not only who I am always becoming, but also my purpose.  Awakening to the realization that I no longer feel like I need to belong anywhere or fit in anywhere because I fit in deep inside of myself.  I am more and more comfortable in my own skin and I think that's one of the things I always wanted.  I can't quite express the excitement I'm feeling about this place I am in right now.  Continually shedding my attachments to the past.  Continually shifting my perceptions and leaving behind beliefs that no longer serve me.  Gracefully stepping into who I was created to be.  That seems to be the theme here lately, stepping into me.  Realizing that I am perfectly imperfect just the way I am, in every moment I'm becoming, in every breath of every moment I'm blessed with.  Knowing that I am loved by my Creator and the Universe as the perfectly imperfect being that I am.  And it's all okay.  And I fit perfectly into that.