Eddie Pinero

What's happening here, right?

You know, but all jokes aside, when you're a freshman in high school, that's a big deal.

The difference is we're many.

And it took a while, you know, but I acclimated.

I made friends.

I did the thing.

But persistently, in the back of my head, I felt like an outsider making my home somewhere that wasn't really mine.

Like I didn't really belong there.

Then came college.

I went to a small private school where most of the students I knew came from prep schools.

And I had somewhat of a more rigorous academic background than I did.

And I decided to be a political science major, basically living in my professor's offices during their hours when they would spend extra time helping me write, showing me how to organize my thoughts and put together analytical papers.

It was a long and stressful learning curve.

And just like before, I figured it out, did fine academically, but again, never really felt like I belonged there.

There were some of the same sentiments with, you know, walking on to the rowing team, where many of the recruits had been doing it all their lives.

Same thing in the corporate world.

Felt a little out of place.

It was a feeling that, yeah, never prevented me from starting.

You know, I'd dive in, I'd figure it out, but there was always this lingering fish-out-of-water feeling that I couldn't shake.

Kind of a tangent, but this is, you know, one of the funniest moments for me looking back.