The Freak in the Room

Sometimes I feel like the freak in the room.  That’s probably not a surprise to many of my readers. But you know what I mean:

When you’re in a room full of non-triathletes, it’s weird to be a triathlete.

When you’re not a writer, in a room full of writers, you feel like an outsider.

Even when I was in a courtroom, I felt like everyone was looking and pointing, “Fraud! Not a real attorney.”

[I was totally a real attorney, by the way. I just felt that I wasn’t put on this planet to be one, so I felt like a fraud, I guess.]

Whatever – everyone knows this scenario. We know when we don’t fit in–for whatever reason.

Being the freak in the room is good when we know who we are, and we are proud of our freak.

In those situations, I think we are the world-changing freaks, right? We know who we are, what we are about, and how we can make a small impact on the world around us.

But when we aren’t sure of our freak (e.g., the freak in me that wasn’t meant to be a lawyer in a courtroom full of lawyers), the skin starts to crawl. We feel we don’t belong, and we are incapable of breathing. The room starts to close in, and we start to think about our inadequacies, our failures, and our faults.

How do we change our freak that doesn’t fit in—to one that doesn’t care if he or she fits in?

We have to awaken our inner “Eff-It” Freak.

You know, the freak that says, “Yeah, I don’t fit in here. Technically. But eff it… I’m here to stay.”

In the fitness world, nothing said “freak” like a “fat girl” on a dock at a half Ironman triathlon.

There I was, the “only one of us” in the sport at the time, and I was damn certain that I didn’t belong.  Others also looked at me like I didn’t belong.

But I had worked hard.  I knew that. So, as I was there, standing on that dock in my spandex, I awakened my Eff It Freak, raised her giant freak flag high, and I went on.

That day, I became a half iron finisher, freak and all.

I am certain if I had not done so–if I had not awakened the Eff It Freak in me–that I would not have shaped into the person I am today.

Nevertheless, the Freak Persisted.

Share a story of your #EffItFreak on Instagram with me!