fitting

Have you ever had one of those moments when you realize that your life fits? I hadn't had one in a while.

Friday night was Fellow's Mixer Night - the incoming freshmen vying for a place in Elon as a Journalism and Communications Fellow come to our building and meet the current Fellows.

I was in demand this year, being the managing editor for our newspaper, and it was weird to suddenly be somewhat important. But it wasn't the power that got me, it was the conversation.

As I was standing there schmoozing with the students, selling Elon and its glories, I started talking with a few of my professors. The conversation turned to grammar and punctuation, and split infinitives. I marveled as I listened to these people discuss something so esoteric as a split infinitive, passionately debating whether they're actually a grammatical error or not.

I stood there, smiling, offering my input, and I realized that I could not have chosen a better place to try to belong.

All my life, I've been a wordy. No one ever really seems to get it - boyfriends, parents, friends, no one seems to understand how I can find extra spaces between words, or anguish over dangling modifiers, comma splices or the correct use of affect versus effect. No one seemed to understand, until Friday. They got it. My professors, I'm just like them.

I feel like it's easy for cinema buffs, or painters or biologists -- there are plenty of people who get excited about those things. Copy editing, that's a niche market. There are so few of us. It was so nice to finally feel like I fit in.

Call me a nerd, or a dork, or a geek, whatever. But you know that when you're writing your resume, cover letters, grad school applications and/or wedding vows, you hand them to me, and they'll never sound better.