No place has ever really felt like it was mine, like there was a space in it for me. Like I belonged in it.
Perhaps some little corners and havens within places that I carved out for myself did in some sense, but these corners and havens were never intended to be there. They were never a part of the plan, I made them to survive.
Maybe that’s why they felt like I belonged there. We were all not really supposed to be there.
These are the places that I’ve mostly existed in. In nooks and crannies, in places sectioned off from where they’re supposed to be a part of. And in boundaries where one thing blurs into another, where you are partly everything but not completly anything. Where no side rejects you, but you are not one of them. You are a visitor, a familiar one, but a visitor nonetheless.
I have always been an outsider. Sometimes a welcomed one, but an outsider still. And eventually, all outsiders must leave. This is one of the rules of being a guest; you are free to return, but you cannot stay.
This used to upset me. It still does sometimes. Someone must be to blame for this inability of mine to find a home.
Was it me? Was there something wrong with me? Was there something I wasn’t doing? Or that I was doing too much of?
Or was it other people and their need to identify and separate the “other”?
Maybe it was something else. Some sort of bad luck in circumstances or conditions or timing. Some outside force that can’t be pinned on one person or group because what it really is is a myriad of factors influenced by many but controlled by none.
Why wasn’t there ever space for me?
I think people are sort of like jigsaw puzzle pieces, and the places they fit into like the puzzle picture the pieces come together to form. There’s nothing wrong with them or with their puzzle picture. There’s nothing wrong with me either, I’m just not a part of the picture and I cannot make it such that I was. I am trying to make my peace with this and for the most part, I have.
I try not to think of the possibility that I’m not a part of any picture. That I am some sort of miscut or manufacturing defect. That there is no place intended for me, no space that I am meant to fill, no slot to fit into. That I am just an extra piece, or worse an accidental one.
I hope not. I really hope not.
