Breaking Away

A long time ago, when I was a very young woman and my husband a very young man, we went to a movie called "Breaking Away." It is about four friends in an Indiana college town. The protagonist is a cyclist who has fallen in love with Italian cycling, and there they are, in his town. He learns rudimentary Italian and tries to befriend them, but they have no interest. Slowly he learns this is not a clique worth belonging to.

I had a similar experience in high school, my senior year. Somehow I fell marginally in with a group totally outside my circle. I really wanted to belong. But they had their own web of relationships that I knew nothing about. I got stuck far on the periphery of that web, ignored, while the spiders battled it out in the middle.

Now I am a grown-up, but I am still learning about trying to fit in where I don't belong. I keep trying to be good at skills that I admire and keep coming up short. I keep following the stories of people successful at skills that I admire and come away only with envy and frustration.

Can't do it any more. No more competing. No more dreaming. No more fantasizing about grand success where I have no chance. I don't have room for envy and frustration in my life.

I'm breaking away from the clique of unreachable aspirations.

I don't need you.

Good-bye.