I was looking at this link a little while ago:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/regajha/truths-about-growing-up-in-multiple-cities
And it made me consider my own origins.
I hate it when people ask me where I’m from, because I never know what to tell them.
I was born in San Jose, California…I spent a good part of my childhood there…and I finished my childhood in Baltimore, Maryland. I’ve lived in Baltimore longer, but that doesn’t make it home, either.
I always like to think of San Jose as my hometown, but I didn’t live there long enough to be able to call it that. I don’t know much about the city…I only have my memories.
Most of my family lives in California…but my immediate family lives in Maryland, which complicates things even more.
I retained my lack of an accent, for the most part, which is characteristic of most northern Californians. But because I like to fit in, I sometimes pick up slang from the people I find myself surrounded by.
Which is why, now that I live in Bemidji, Minnesota for college, I have a strange hybrid of accents and regional dialects from each place.
When I moved to Baltimore, on my first day of second grade, a kid asked me a strange question.
Kid: “Can I hold your pencil?”Seven-year-old-me: “….Sure? But I’m using it, so…give it right back.”
I thought he literally wanted to hold my pencil. It was the strangest request I had ever heard. I thought, “This kid is pretty weird. What’s so special about my pencil that he wants to hold it?”
Years later, in Bemidji, I found a similar situation taking place without me realizing it.
“Can I hold your pencil?”
“….What?”
“Oh, sorry. I just meant…can I borrow it?”
“….Sure.”
It’s because of things like this that make me feel like I don’t truly belong to any one place.
And it doesn’t help that it’s difficult to explain my family situation, either–my parents got divorced, and when I was maybe one year old my mom started living with a man I called Daddy. They didn’t get married until the summer after I finished third grade, so it was always hard to explain to people where I came from and what my definition of a “dad” was. (I am, however, perfectly happy to have him in my life, and there’s nothing wrong with my situation).
I’m a child of the universe–a byproduct of a series of events that allowed me to think beyond words and ideas like “home” and “belonging.” I’ve also always been more of an observer, anyway–someone who prefers to be part of the furniture, silently observing and processing the scenes happening around me, rather than a direct influence on anyone or anything.
Moving around so much has given me a unique insight into the way people interact in different places, and what makes one place different from another place. Not only that, but it’s given me new ideas on what constitutes “normal” and “humanity.”
From everything I’ve learned so far, there are no different “types” of people. There are only different states of mind, and different experiences that constitute a person.
At first, when I moved to Bemidji, I thought that it would be a good opportunity to clear my head and figure out where I wanted to call home, and what I wanted to do for a living. It was a great choice, but these were not the right reasons.
I realize that perhaps my true intentions were not to “get away” or “find my true calling.” I now think that it was to scare myself into submission–to shock my system to the core and reboot, so to speak. I had been a living ghost before, going through the motions of life, unsure of how to live.
And after leaving for college, I began to wake up.
I just needed a catalyst. Another move helped me begin to discover my identity…slowly. My search is not complete by any means, yet I feel…more whole than before. Like a couple of pieces of the puzzle have fallen into place, and I can see some leaves and a piece of a clock, but nothing else is clear enough to decide what the final picture is supposed to be.
After scaring myself, and breaking out of my “comfort zone” (though I cannot say that I was very comfortable to begin with), I began to see that my daily anxieties were simply hurdles to overcome. I have made much progress since I moved here.
However…I have become lazier, more comfortable, more willing to settle. I’m losing sight of the developing picture, and giving up on the puzzle.
At least, I saw myself giving up, and stopped.
And decided I needed to shock my system again.
Without scaring myself, I cannot truly feel alive.
So, I constantly try to take risks, to remind myself that I am alive and to remind myself of the promise I made to myself as a child–that I would one day go on a fantastic adventure that I could tell my grandchildren about.
A child’s wish has a lot more power than people realize. When we are children, we are more perceptive. When I was a child, without really realizing, I recognized my need to connect with the world around me. I knew I was disconnected, somehow, and I wanted to discover why that was and fix it. I wanted to go on a grand adventure, to feel alive and discover what it meant to be alive.
I had always thought that I wanted to belong, because I didn’t belong.
But now I know that it’s only a word, and that it doesn’t have any real function here.
And now I am feeling the echoes of that wish I made so long ago, when I was wrapped up in my blankets, perusing my mother’s now-dogeared copy of The Hobbit.
In a couple of weeks, I will be applying for a passport.
My intention is to study abroad in Tokyo, Japan.
I am hoping that the culture shock will send my brain reeling, and that it will startle me into another series of events that will lead me to a better understanding of myself and my own humanity.
I find that an adventure is best had and enjoyed when a person is made to wander aimlessly through a place foreign to them in search of something that they’re not quite sure of.
Cheers for the character of the unwitting adventurer, and let us hope that I play the part well enough.
< 3,
L.B.
The Beaver Squirrel 