In Between Worlds
I have always felt as though I have never belonged, regardless of whether acceptance was present, because if you cannot be perceived for who you are, be understood for what you are, it is not true acceptance. For as long as I can remember, regardless of how furiously I charged forward, I have constantly felt as though I were swimming between dimensions and layers, none of which felt quite like me. All I truly had was an internal knowing of what me felt like - thus, belonging is almost a word that carries a tinge of playful trickery, it feels a little too rigid for me, for it is not really belonging that I seek, but something akin to existential resonance, because resonance is dynamic - to feel shared frequency, intimate textures, to know at your very core that you are not alone.
By some indescribable miracle, I have felt this within the interpersonal realm, and with misted eyes, I felt an undulating undercurrent of melancholy at how readily some people seem to enjoy it. I then found myself wondering whether I would even be who I am today had I felt this all along. But when it comes to places, I have never felt as though I belonged in one particular location. I have travelled through many obscure countries, witnessed great wonders, hidden nooks, alleyways, and quiet places known only to locals, yet while I feel that places possess souls, I have only ever experienced transient flashes of resonance with them. I simultaneously chuckle at the absurdity of my endeavours, that although I am searching for definitive coordinates, what I am truly feeling for is energetic congruence.
I do not know where I belong in terms of what home feels like within a place, or even whether that is the right lens through which to approach it, yet I carry this honeydew melon hope within me that one day I will. It is almost subtly comedic that I call myself the soul cartographer, yet I have still not discovered where I am meant to be. Perhaps it is not one place at all, and that is both the lesson and the joke, but rather somewhere in between worlds - or maybe that which I must weave into reality.
I suppose it is almost a sense of immersive attunement that is alive, in all its atmospheric wonder. Perhaps, at a deeper level, it is recognition outside of myself, the kind found within shared comfortable silence.
I have never even felt a permanent sense of self which I can connect to a person or a place. I shift, people shift, places shift, and the connections I made over my lifetime are real, and meaningful, but not lasting as a particular permanent thing. Commitments last, but that’s not connection. Things shift, and I shift. I make serial connections with people, but each is different, some in the context of committed relationships, because of the shifts. Am I a New Yorker? Am I a Texan? Am I a nomad? Yes, yes, and yes, but not all at once.
The only place I’ve been is in this reality, but belonging is ephemeral, it’s a framing, and the frame is constantly changing. Others say they do belong, and I take joy in their satisfaction with that, but I don’t know where I belong because I also don’t know where I don’t belong.
Beautiful essay. Thank you for it.