Tina Manousakis

What does the phrase “Fish Out of Water” mean to you?

It sounds like a high school homework assignment, doesn’t it? For me, the idea of feeling like a fish out of water has pervaded most aspects of my life since the beginning, it seems. It started for me with my family, this notion of not really fitting in, as though I was somehow standing on the outside of the situation looking in. I couldn’t relate to the “Greekness” of my family, and if you have seen “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”, you get a small idea of what I am talking about. Though I don’t mean to suggest that Greek Americans are like that anymore, 40 years ago that is exactly how they were. I could not relate to some of my family’s belief in Christianity, not having that kind of faith at all, nor could I understand my mother’s family’s Judaism, not having been raised in it. The lack of belonging only grew worse as I got older. In middle and high school I was pushed into an environment that felt too difficult and I couldn’t keep up. I felt stupid, and angered by my perceived stupidity, I assumed an “I don’t care” attitude. It did not help that the school I went to seemed to foster my lack of belonging by telling me that, based on their criteria, I could not do the work and thus not fit in. I spent 6 years feeling like an outsider, every day brought new struggles, challenges, and failures. This mentality followed me to university, where, despite my best efforts to prove I could finish a degree in Physics, I didn’t belong there either. In my adult life, I have found fleeting moments of belonging: in Scotland I felt I had come home, and in this group I have found something that I love to do, though life tends to get in the way of even this. I feel as though there is nothing I excel at and nothing that is mine. I am the little girl standing out in the cold, nose pressed against the glass, wishing I was inside, with the happy people frolicking, and wishing, for just an instant, to feel good in my skin.