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Enough with the Damn Questioning
Where do I belong?
Where do I fit in?
Who am I?
These questions seem to plague us all at one point or throughout our entire lives. They can be confusing, exhausting, challenging questions to consider and yet, we feel compelled to do so. It’s as if we must discover these answers in order to feel whole, complete, understood.
Maybe it all started in childhood, where we were asked to fit the shape (star, circle, square) into the correct opening; the animal (horse) to the proper location (farm;) or the color (green, blue, yellow) to the right word. We were asked to make things fit, choose where they belong, judge what goes together and what does not. We were asked to decide what is “out of place” and in doing so grew up questioning our place in this world.
I am not saying that we should stop teaching our children the different shapes, animals or colors. But I am asking, what now? In a society that is desperately trying to unite one another and failing miserably to do so, maybe it’s time to seek an alternative perspective. Maybe we could come together by acknowledging our unique differences without fear, labels or judgement. Without seeing our individual characteristics as “good” or “bad,” “right” or “wrong.” Let’s come together by celebrating our beautiful eccentricity. Instead of being fearful of our diversity, praise it, rejoice in it.
Now, I am not talking exclusively about race here. That is a matter all its own, of which I would never pretend to understand the challenges any ethnicity other than my own experiences. I’m talking beyond our external selves to the more subtle essences of our being. Let’s allow our inner selves to shine beyond our external appearances. Let’s simply, profoundly, be. Be without doubt, fear or shame.
Why? Because I and maybe you am exhausted. I am exhausted with trying to figure out “where do I belong,” or “where do I fit in?” I am ready to uncover who I am, not by force but by just being, embracing my ever changing, ever evolving, ever growing self who transforms with the seasons. Who accepts the cycles of the sun and moon. I am sick of deciding who is out and who is in my tribe and instead want the edges of separation to merge not by denial of our uniqueness but by appreciation of it. I am not you and you are not me. Thank God. And if I can look at you in your perfectly imperfectness and see wholeness than one day, I will be able to see it in my self.
I don’t know where I belong and that’s okay.
I don’t know where I fit in and yet I feel whole.
I don’t know who I am because I am not finished!