Where do I belong?

There are many out there who claim to have that answer…

I only wish, at times, that I could be one of them.

You see, I’ve never really felt like I belonged…

anywhere.

Not on the lonely island where I grew up…

to learn what hate looked like…

and to be fearful in life.

Not with women, nor men.

Not with people in general.

Not even with family.

Not even in my own country.

Nor, where I find myself now.

A lonely and isolated expat whose romantic notions are routinely dispelled.

I just don’t seem to belong…

anywhere.

And you know what?

That’s OK.

I’m reading Still Writing by Dani Shapiro…

It seems she suffers, or has suffered, similar feelings.

Here’s what she says about them…

My inner life was barbed, with jagged edges. Left untended, it felt dangerous, like it might turn on me at any moment. Intuitively, I understood that I had to use it. It was all I had. By writing, I was participating in a tradition as old as humanity. I was here. Hieroglyphs on rock. I was here, and this is my story.

I don’t seem capable of accepting another’s conception of where it is that I belong.

Maybe, I’m just rebellious that way.

Or, selfish?

I don’t know…except that yes, I’m full of deadly faults.

I prefer to discover truth for myself, rather than be told what it is by sources I don’t altogether trust.

An advantage of being where I am, a perpetual state of un-belonging, is that I get to see things as an outsider…

someone on the outside looking in.

I believe that is what led me to blogging and ultimately to this blog, Revolutionary Misfit.

The name itself sort of sums up where I am and who I am.

A misfit searching for a revolution and revelation…of truth.

And did I mention that truth is rarely discovered in comfortable places…

some things bear repeating.

So I’ll keep searching and presenting my discoveries here.

As Shapiro alludes, the primary raw material I have to work with is me…

I am the canvass upon which this picture will ultimately reveal itself…

So, the answer to the question of where do I belong…

is that I belong exactly where I am…

And I am here.

Hieroglyphs on rock.

image credit: ЕленАндреа via Compfight cc