There are people who move through childhood feeling like they belong everywhere.
And then there are people like me. The ones who always felt a little out of place, even when surrounded by others.
I grew up in a small village where life was quiet on the outside but loud inside my head. I tried to fit into every circle I walked into, changing pieces of myself depending on who stood next to me. I kept thinking that if I adjusted enough, someone would finally say, “Yes, you belong with us.”
But that moment never came.
Instead, I learned how to blend in just enough to get through the day.
I made new friends, lost old ones, and carried around this constant feeling that I was somehow built differently. Not broken.. just different. But as a child, “different” doesn’t feel special. It feels heavy. It feels like walking around with a small secret that no one else can see.
I didn’t talk about my feelings because I didn’t think anyone would understand what it was like to feel disconnected from the world around you. Even when things looked fine on the outside, I felt like I was living life from the wrong angle, like everyone else had been handed a map and I got the wrong directions.
There is one memory, though, that still stays with me after all these years.
A teacher once asked me why I always put myself down.
He didn’t say it in a harsh way. He said it like someone who actually noticed me, the real me, not the version I tried to play so I’d fit in.
That one sentence stuck. Not because it fixed anything right away, but because it was the first time someone acknowledged the quiet struggle I thought I was hiding so well.
At school, I wasn’t the best at anything except math and art. I liked the structure of numbers and the freedom of drawing, two places where I didn’t have to pretend. I could be myself without explaining why. And maybe that was the start of everything that came after.
Looking back now, I understand something I didn’t back then:
I wasn’t supposed to fit in.
I was supposed to feel different so I could learn how to build something for people who feel the same.
Wander Balance was never meant to be a trendy brand or a perfect version of wellness. It came from the part of me that knows how it feels to be an outsider, to struggle quietly, to hide your messy moments, to believe everyone else has life figured out except you.
I wanted to create a space where people don’t have to perform or pretend.
A space where you can be honest about being overwhelmed, tired, lost, or unsure. A place for the ones who carry their feelings quietly but deeply.
If you’ve ever felt like the “black sheep,” I want you to know something:
You are enough.
Your life is enough.
You don’t need to be more like anyone else.
You don’t need to force yourself into places that don’t feel right.
You don’t need to apologize for growing in your own way, in your own time.
Whatever you dream about, you are capable of.
Even if you start from a place that feels small.
Even if you’re still figuring yourself out.
You don’t need to change who you are to belong.
You just need to find spaces — and people — where you don’t have to shrink or edit yourself.
This blog, this brand, and these little moments we share…
I hope they become one of those spaces for you.
Because you deserve to feel at home in your own life.
And if no one’s told you lately:
You’re allowed to take up space exactly as you are.