occupying a privileged space with an awareness of what it is to not occupy that privileged space is to say thank you. Always thank you. Any irritation or slight, any discomfort or wrong, greased by the blessings that buoy. I had a year of living freely. In and out of countries, my days spent according to my whims. How dare I complain about the bumpy reentry.
The reentry has been bumpy. A road lined with challenges, some foreseen – like making friends in a new place- and others unfathomable until 2020- like a pandemic marching through every nook of the world. But I had a place to land, free housing and food and the warmth of love as a bonus. Even as I struggled to find full-time employment, contract work did more than simply sustain me.
In a world that began imploding in 2020, unemployment and sickness and fear, I was so thankfully spared the brunt of it. So how dare I mention the discomfort of a bumpy reentry.
But feelings can’t be logic-ed. I felt what I felt and I feel what I feel and my reentry has been bumpy. Filled with newness and uncertainty -things I was prepared for but for much longer than I anticipated, and adding extra challenges to the mix. How do you make friends in a pandemic? How do you make home, home, when home is so much more than an address?
Family helps. Family helps so much. But family can’t be everything.
In the past few weeks the uncertain tumult of the past few years has calmed. It is by no means settled but I can see the faint traces of possible paths. I am embarking on first steps – sharing a meal and talking with strangers who, after food and conversation feel a little less strange. These past few weekends I’ve girded myself against the possibility of revealing the oddities that make me me and finding no one to see themselves reflected in them. But I parade my oddities just the same. In search of my people, the ones who, more than street name or neighborhood, mark a spot as home.
(This isn’t what I want to say or how I want to say it, but I miss writing and if I don’t post this I fear I won’t post anything, won’t write anything for even more months...so here it is. And next time, I’ll try to get closer to my voice and the stories I want to tell.)
