As I drove back from Prescott today (after clearing out my storage unit) I realized that I no longer "belong" any where. I no longer have a land-based home. I no longer have a storage unit (or even the need for one). And while I do understand that Tumbleweed IS my new home, I no longer belong anywhere.
I am a person without a place.
Belonging is a core issue for me...or, more accurately, feeling like I don't belong. It took me a very long time to figure that out...and even longer to understand why...so now it's all about finding a way to resolve this issue one way or another. But I'm not going to figure it out by thinking about it...or even talking about it. So I'm about to dive right into the middle of the cold, dark truth...then swim like hell to find the edge of night.
Yes, indeed...I am about to swim as hard as I can, and hope that I don't drown.
This is my way. When I want to really understand something, I dive into the middle of it so that I can make sense of what is real. In grad school, when I wanted to explore how my hair affected my power as a woman, I shaved my head. When I wanted to understand the meaning of the stuff I owned, I intentionally lived in a house full of unpacked boxes for nearly a year and a half. And now...to understand this issue collectively called "belonging," I have created an existence where I belong nowhere...
And now I am very curious to see where I end up.
It's not easy to be a person without a place, but I am also a person without a person. My sense of belonging died when my mom died, and I haven't found my bearings, yet. I thought my husband would be a place where I belonged, but that was not to be. I've tried to create belonging with the places where I've lived...with the organizations where I've worked or volunteered...with the social organizations I have joined...and with the visions I have worked to create myself, yet here I am...a person without a place or a person.
Where DO I belong?
I intuitively know where I belong...but, the problem is that I don't feel it. Instead, I feel tiny and afraid of the dark. So, onward I go, one step at a time...still searching for the person, place, or thing where I belong...
