I'm having one of those days when the world seems foreign, and no place feels like home. It's not really a sad feeling- just one of isolation or difference, as if I am looking out at the world through a little window from a quiet place inside myself where no one else is. From that perspective, everything seems rather strange and overwhelming. It's as if I don't belong anywhere- nothing is familiar and it seems like I have to use all of my energy to act natural, as if I understand all of the craziness around me.
But on days like this I'm inwardly tired, and I'd rather just observe everything calmly as it rushes around me in its noisy, frantic confusion. Sure, it's all very interesting and not necessarily objectionable, but sometimes I think it's ok to step back and not be a part of it. Sometimes I am just my very small self in my little world- I look out and acknowledge that I live and belong inside here, while out there I am only an alien pretending to comprehend it all. In my dreams, my "world" takes on a vividly visual nature, but when I'm awake it is reduced to a quiet feeling, like a persistent tugging at my consciousness.
The great big confusing 'real' world is an assault on my senses, and I want to go home where I am comfortable and safe. But home doesn't exist, because everywhere I go I am the newcomer, the foreigner. It's as if I was born on the wrong planet, and I left home so long ago that I can't remember where it is or how to find my way back. Actually, I think a place can only remain 'home' if you are there- so the fact that I haven't been there for so long means that it wouldn't even be home anymore, even if I did manage get there somehow.
I suppose that life is destined to be a wandering journey as I try to make sense of it all and figure out what the heck I'm doing here. I guess we're all born into that same situation, really, but each person seems to adjust differently for whatever reasons (be it nature, nurture, a combination of the two, or something else entirely). At least I am blessed enough to return to my dreams each night in a blissful respite from the exhausting and confusing real world.
Honestly, I don't know if this will make any sense to anyone else. I suppose my mind is odd and my perspective too, so these silly little thoughts and feelings probably seem muddled and meaningless to anyone reading them. But this is the mind I live in, and I thought it was worth explaining this part of it, at least once.
I know how you feel.
ReplyDeleteI find, during those times, that when I pray or reflect upon the beauty of God, the isolation turns into solitude.
Well, hello, dear friend. I am glad to hear your thoughts.
ReplyDeleteI used to attribute "home" to a location. A place where I felt safe... but "home" wasn't safe. So, I changed my view of all that and Jason's reminder of, "home is where the heart is", soaked in a bit- though I think of it somewhat differently. I find "home" in people. In friends, I suppose. The people who allow me to be who I am and actually don't seem to mind it. People who inspire me and challenge me and love me. So, I find "family" in many outside my family and I find "home" in them, too.
There also is something lovely about the idea of not having a home... And while it may sound silly and that not having a home is sad- in some ways, it is liberating. To be free from a place where you are expected or obligated to be... or stay.
I had a friend in college, not a close friend, but a somewhat nymphly/spritely friend to who flitted through her days without restraints of what she could or could not do, when she could pick up and leave everything behind to find other somethings. And I envied her, to a degree, that she was unafraid to do such things. And there her life was not bound by the rules, around which I form mine.
Just stream of thought...
I end with, I care a great deal about you and desire that you find a sense of home that is lovely.