Floater

Wow it's been a while. Why, you ask? Well, I've been busy. That's all...

With what? Wow you're needy, Blogerica.

Work.

And jury duty.

GRAND jury duty.

Which brings us to today's entry: my life as a floater.

Now when I talk about myself as a floater, I'm not talking about being that black spec in your eye that can signal a detached retina, or a kid you're trying to teach swimming to whose body mass is a disproportionate amount of fat and therefore he has a hard time swimming under water because he's always at the surface. I'm talking about the fact that I've never really fit in a social clique.

From when I was little, I was always like that. In middle school and high school, when everyone is all cliquey and going from one clique to the other is harder than leaping rooftops in a single bound, I was -- keeping with the same bad analogy -- a blue jay, simply floating from one to the other.

I go with blue jay over, say, crow or pigeon, because I was always welcome. I got along with everyone. But it had its downside: since I didn't actually belong anywhere, I was never really thought of as part of a group, just always welcomed when I was there.

It never really bothered me, though. I never needed much, just one or two people. I had a couple close friends in middle school, I had a girlfriend and a fantastic best friend in high school, and in my 4.5 years since, I've started to find a group I fit in and am actually part of. It's quite nice.

But I've kept some of my old floater mentalities. They've come in handy, even in something as mundane as grand jury duty. Y'see, our jury is filled with strong-willed (read: stubborn) personalities. We've got the person who's as far left politically as you can go, the person who is her equal to the right, the insurance salesman who asks too many questions and if he thinks something doesn't smell 100% right won't vote on a case, the pharmacist who has his moments of aggressive passive-aggression such as closing a window more violently than he needs to, the man who types too loudly and always has to open said window, and everything else you can imagine.

I seem to be the only one who genuinely gets along with everyone -- though it's safe to say I certainly do not like everyone.

But the point that I'm really thinking about right now is that it's nice to finally be able to be a floater by choice and not because I don't fit. I have a place I fit and very much belong. Kinda wonder what I'd been missing all those years...