Foreigner.

I’m constantly stuck between two things, two places. And in each place I never feel at home. I still never fully belong.

I feel lonely. It’s more than just missing engagement announcements or births or graduations due to my previous withdrawal from social media…It’s more like the loneliness of feeling the way that I feel in a world that largely can’t understand the constant sadness I feel for the world. I’ve always felt like I didn’t belong, but recently, it feels like a deeper sense of not belonging. I’ve always struggled with that but somehow now it feels different. That feeling intensified in a different way after 2020. I have truly felt like a foreigner. It’s the first time I’ve actually felt the exile that is our fallen state. While this might seem depressing, it is actually what has been helping me, thank God, to finally realize who and what I am. Nonetheless, it’s hard to go through these intense times feeling this alone.

As I continue to patiently, and painfully, experience the slow process of healing, I’ve come to realize that I shoot myself in my own foot. Yes, it is becoming harder to experience meaningful connection, and, I haven’t been open to the vulnerability required to even plant the seed of meaningful connection. This is something I continue to work on.

Right now, this looks like re-joining social media. I have mixed feelings about this, and I’m not sure if it will help, but I want to practice interacting on the surface. I doubt this will quell the deeper wound of desolation, but maybe it’ll help me practice being myself without having to drape myself in a cloak of intensity.

More on this to come…