A Hexagon Peg in a Square Hole

I’m certain I’m not alone in this, but I’ve never felt like I belonged anywhere, from a social circles’ perspective anyway. I’ve found my spiritual connection people and that’s more important to me anyway. I’m much younger than my siblings, and was perfectly content as a loner child, losing myself in books and in the stories of my own imagination. The kids in my neighborhood went to public school, while I attended the small Catholic school at our church. That immediately set me apart. The Catholic curriculum ended after grade school, and I incorporated into their mainstream world and their established relationships. It was a bumpy transition as I was ahead of them in reading, math, and science, and years behind them socially.

This is when I first felt different in a way that mattered at the time. I began public school as a bookish and awkward teenager. After a summer at the community pool, letting the sun turn my skin brown and streak my blonde hair which I grew long, I traded my glasses for blindness, my frumpy style for trendy 1970s boho, and returned the following school year looking very different than the year before. I was appointed editor of the school paper which carried enough clout to allow me access to the fringe of the popular crowd (the cheerleaders and their sports jock boyfriends), but nothing stuck. They were friends. They just weren’t my friends.

By the end of the second school year after my metamorphosis, I was totally rejected by the in crowd, replaced by a new cheerleader (there was apparently a quota and criteria). I was heartbroken (and it still stings a little to think about after all these years), but found new friends and learned that being popular wasn’t the same as being cool. This new crowd was edgy, and even a little scary, and they broke the rules. They smoked, cut class, some getting in more serious trouble for drugs and petty theft, and while I liked them better, I didn’t really fit in there either. I wasn’t enough for the first group, and too much like the first for the second. It seems I’ve walked the hedge my entire life, I just didn’t have the experience or the lexicon for it at the time. Nor did I know at the time how dangerous it could be. I’m a bit wiser now (ha) and seriously grateful to have had a couple of near-misses and nothing more. I wrote more about that here: My True Crime Story

I realized early on that life would be easier if I made myself smaller. I was a hexagon shaped peg, and the world is made up of square holes. If I wanted to be accepted, I had to shrink down to fit in. If no one knew that I was making myself less, they wouldn’t realize how very different I was from them. People want to believe the version of us that fits their filter, so it was easier to be less smart, less “out there”, less everything that makes up me, to let others be more. I adapted this as a means for conducting myself through roughly half of my career. The second half, as I got older, bolder, and less inclined to care what others thought of my apart from my job-related accomplishments, got way more interesting, but only in a ‘day at the office’ kind of way. I’ll spare you those details here, but I continue to adjust to the world around me as needed whenever it makes my life easier, or if I care enough about someone else that I don’t want to upset them. This skill continues to serve me well.

Now that I’m out of the corporate world, I can embrace being a hexagon peg in full form and be as different as I want but his really just means being fully myself. I’m only different in the way we are all different. We’re unique individuals coexisting in this shared space. The difference (pun intended) is that there are those of us who dance to our own beat, and those who are hopelessly out of time, following a mismatched lead.

Which one are you?

Now, for the housekeeping segment of our time together:

I host live tarot readings and ramble sessions every Sunday at 10am CDT as part of the Trusted Tarot group on Facebook. You can join in (or just watch) here: Trusted Tarot

I am the Tableau Module Trainer for TABI’s Intermediate Tarot course that will be starting again in October. I also host the North American Time monthly zoom meetup.  If you’re interested in either the course, or joining TABI, please reach out and I’ll point you in the right direction.

And I’m presenting The Dao of Witchcraft at WitchCon in February 2027.

More events and offerings to follow but you can always reach me via email at themysticsparlour@gmail.com, follow me on Instagram as @the.mystics.parlour, or send me a friend request on Facebook.

If you would like to know more about my ancestral connection work, my Daoist path, or my other offerings such as tarot readings and classes, spiritual guidance, and mindset mentoring, you can find more detailed information by using the drop-down menu on my website:  The Mystic's Parlour

I appreciate your continued support and encouragement. I’ll be taking a short break in the desert, so I’ll see you soon, with more stories to tell.