a fish out of water, in a sea that belongs

I knew I was lost again when I was 16 years old and praying each night to wake up with an injury bad enough to justify being bedridden and alone for the foreseen future. The pain instantly brought me back to the fluorescent-lit classrooms of the pre-pandemic years, in which we sat for nearly eight hours consecutively. The low hum of the digital white board and the sound of impatient, tapping feet were enough of a sensory overload to solidify an understanding of the deep crack growing inside of me. Five years earlier, at 11, that crack opened, and it was only getting wider.

My mom drove a 2004 Pontiac that was riddled with memories of overbearing and unnecessary tantrums, from before I’d even started school. Every morning I wailed and begged to stay home, reasoning unclear. I felt like a fish out of water in a sea full of those who belonged. It was jarring to realize, a half decade later, the same flame continued to burn. 

When I hear my name aloud, I first think that someone near has the same name as me. I sat under fluorescent lights again during a two week training seminar for a part time mall job. The setting felt both unfitting and ironic. Freshly 19 years old, I felt above the stereotypical young adult– seasoned by adolescence, though I somehow could not feel any younger. My peers chatted, laughing, clinking metaphorical drinks and made plans for the night. I went home however, pondering my exclusion. Retrospectively, I can see that the only person excluding me was myself. 

I’ve never felt alone, even when I’m just with myself. I see her differently in each eye— not because I find myself two faced, but because I’ve never known what parts of me are real and what aren’t. I’ve been a puppet for others and a source of entertainment, but I never know when I’m performing. The stage, and eventually the screen, has always called me. Is it my home, or is it a place holding me in a state of Stockholm syndrome?

Disassociation was not only a familiar idea that drifted around my mind every now and then. It was more like a sports team I kept repping, whenever someone asked why I seem different each time they meet me. The hardest admission of this desolate piece of writing however is the one next to come. When, how, and why this disillusionment from oneself and the world began are three questions that I have not the slightest idea how to answer. Or maybe worse is the possibility that there is no home or birthplace that this feeling came from. It simply has, it is, and it will be.