It seems like a common thing.  I see it in pictures, notice it in the way people interact, feel it in the way I don’t quite fit in.  History.  It’s normal, right?  To have people in your life that you’ve known for a long enough time that a relationship of some kind has formed, to be comfortable around someone just because you’ve been around them so much…and vice versa.

History is something I find myself lacking, though.  My early childhood years were spent moving around, switching schools…never in one place for more than a year until I was 10 years old.  Those ten years ensured that no “history” was established with anyone other than my family.  They also made it hard for me to find my way into anyone else’s world…partly because, even at 10 years old, I felt like I was intruding on someone’s already established realm of relationship, partly because I think I had already learned that it’s easier when the time comes to leave if there are no ties to sever.

So, I spent my adolescence barely forming any history with anyone.  I went to college.  I spent more time around people.  I made a few friends.  I established history with some.  These are people I can generally be myself around…but rarely have the chance to be around because of distance.  And, as it turns out, college was apparently the only opportunity I would have to form history.

The following years have been comprised of countless experiences of, again, feeling like I am intruding on someone else’s story.  It’s hard, when surrounded by people that have already written themselves into each others’ histories, to try to find a place there.  Who is going to choose to be around someone unfamiliar and awkward when they can be around someone, or many someones, who are already known by them?  The answer is really almost nobody.

It seems some people are skilled at just inserting themselves into the lives of others and making it seem like they have always been there, but I’m not one of them.  I stink at pretending.  I’m not comfortable around anyone right away…which probably means nobody is comfortable around me, either.  Which also probably means they don’t really want to spend time with me.  Which means I won’t ever know anyone enough to be comfortable around them…and so on.

I’ve been told that thinking like this is a lie from the enemy, but I think it is the reality of human nature and that I happened to fall on the wrong side of the equation.  Somehow, somewhere there is a lesson in this…an opportunity to lean more heavily on the Lord; a chance for gratitude that, at least, I have a husband who is my very best friend; a refining process that will help sift out the chaff in me…but at the end of the day, my heart still aches from being on the outside.