A Person Out Of Place

Feeling out of place…that’s something I think most of us experience any number of times in our lives. It can be really unpleasant; finding yourself in a space or group where, to your eyes, everyone else clearly belongs, but for some reason, you do not. Occasionally, maybe someone reaches out to you and brings you into the fold…introduces you to people, or creates a way in somehow. Perhaps you feel less out of place after that happens. But maybe that doesn’t happen and it’s just an uncomfortable, disheartening situation until you can manage to escape from it.

A long time ago now, in my early 20s, I met a girl named Jennifer. She was in high school, and was the foster daughter of my friend’s aunt (take a second if you need to make those connections in your brain). My friend was also living with her aunt at the time, so she and Jennifer ended up spending a lot of time together. Jennifer had just moved to Oklahoma City, and didn’t know many people. My friend took her new “foster cousin” under her wing and would bring her along sometimes to our more “grown up” friend gatherings. A weird idea? Perhaps? A bad idea? Not necessarily…? We didn’t give her alcohol or drugs, we didn’t insist that she act anything other than her age. I think she was just glad to have some people to be with here and there even if we were older than her. She was arguably out of place, but maybe it was better than being no place at all. I guess you’d have to ask her. But we enjoyed having her around. Maybe it made us behave slightly better…hard to say.

I wrote the song “Sarsaparilla Girl” about Jennifer. I was inspired by the person she was, and the person I imagined she’d grow up to be. And it was a way to immortalize that brief period where she was a part of our young 20-something friend group. I can only hope that maybe there are a few folks out there who can relate to Jennifer and the song, because you spent some time in your teens feeling generally out of place. I know I sure did. What times come to mind when you think about being out of place? What people come to mind when you think about people you knew who might have felt out of place? Did you reach out to them? If not, do you wish you had?