The Only Whatever in the Room

Dr. Kat
Thoughts And Ideas
Published in
4 min readNov 4, 2023

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Photo by Mulyadi on Unsplash

I guess it is a feeling I should be used to by now. Being the only fill-in-the-blank in the room. The only woman. The only Latina. The only Native New Mexican. The only introvert. The only mom.

It seems like I’ve spent a lot of my life being the only whatever in the room. I don’t know why I keep ending up in these spaces. I like to think it is because I am such an interesting dynamic person. It’s probably more that I’m clueless, and I just go ahead and enter spaces that sound interesting without giving much thought to it until I’m in there and notice I’m an “other”. And then I just power through.

I’ve spent much of my life stumbling into rooms that were filled with people who do not look like me. Why do I keep ending up in these situations? Because I am ambitious and I want to do big things. I want to see the world. I want to make a difference. And powerful rooms don’t historically have a lot of people like me in them.

Those times that there has been someone like me, I’ve noticed it. I’ve been grateful and inspired by it. So I know it matters. I have to keep doing it even though I don’t always want to. Even though it would be easier to stay home.

So I keep doing it. Going into the rooms. Trying to talk over the loud voices hoping that someone will notice.

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