Lately I can’t shake this feeling of being on the outside.
This is both real, true and also untrue.
I am part of what I choose to be a part of.
I belong.
I belong to myself.
I belong everywhere I bring myself.
I belong nowhere.
Still.
There is something core, crater deep that haunts and has followed me around for longer than five decades.
And I have kept it going.
Messages. Actions. Narratives. Impulses. Bloodlines. Scars that live inside of me. Scars that are visible on the outside. On the outside. On the outside. I’m on the outside looking in.
I’m on the outside.
I don’t have to be.
In literal terms, I am not part of my own family.
I am not part of any family. Yet, I am part of a few families. Gorgeous families who invite me in deeply as part of their own. When they do.
Those invitations are extraordinary, beautiful. Humbling. Exquisite. And ordinary.
They are life-giving, soul medicine alchemical shifts. Being “part of.” Trusting. Trusting again. Loving deep. Being with experiences.
I am a true member when I am. Initiated. Loved. Purely. Not disregarded. I am accepted purely.
Families have survival mechanisms that are pure. Natural. Instinctual. They enclose and cloister themselves. They shelter in place. They go into lockdown. There is a certain perimeter that an outsider must keep to in order for the family to maintain its homeostasis, like an electric fence.
They express a precise silence.
They maintain rules and rituals.
Some strengthening. Some decimating. Depending on the lens through which an outsider views, chooses and follows.
Some views have a tight seal. And I find myself once again standing in front of the ballistic glass sealed window, watching the world go by after my accident those 5 decades ago.
No one can hear me. No one. I am safe. But what from?
I remember this view and this glass and this soundlessness.
It lives inside of me.
I’m on the inside looking out.
No sound.
I’m searching for my first family.
This is my first dark night
and I am safe under this seal. So safe in this soundless hallway.
I come from a family system where the solution was black and white.
You were either in or you were thrown out.
“You are either with us or you’re not.”
We had a garbage disposal when I was around 8. And I remember the eerie sounds it would make, the way it would crash/ compost down on the garbage to make room for more garbage. It injured someone once very badly. The blood I witnessed was unforgiving. Crash. Down. Garbage. Out. Black. White.
Where did they go?
I’m in the hallway. What are the rules here?
Rule #1: “If you don’t listen, I’m gone.”
(Evidence: My father lives somewhere else.)
Rule #2: “You are not allowed in whenever I decide.”
(Evidence: My sister’s door is closed intermittently)
Rule #3: “Children are to be seen and not heard.”
(Evidence: Disputed this one too many times to name…)
Rules are important, necessary boundaries, but they need to make sense to an organized brain looking in from the outside.
I look to God to help me find my way. To help me remember that even alone, I am never alone. And when I fail at remembering, I ask for forgiveness. Mine and His. And I begin again. Again and again.
This practice. This navigation. This forgetting. And remembering and surrendering. Devoting.
Is ongoing. Loving. It is interior and when steadfast and rock solid, it manifests exteriorly, the way a turtle brings its own dwelling everywhere it goes, always knowing itself to be at home.
*
So what do I do when I am on the outside?
When I feel like I am on the outside?
Lately, I have begun to do a few new things:
I’ve reframed the narrative.
The invitations are precious when they come.
I can keep my heart open even if someone else’s fence is up.
Meaning, I don’t have to erect one of my own, literally or figuratively.
(Maybe I don’t have the full story and maybe they are in survival mode.)
I can keep everyone in my heart and grow my capacity for compassion even while I may feel like an outsider.
I can continue to build muscles around what it is like to change. To change a story, an old one, a new one. A story that has not yet begun.
I pray.
And then something magical happens.
I see signs. Everywhere.
I get outside and beyond myself by doing something tangible, concrete for other humans with and without family several times each week. To give, offer and demonstrate what it is to be welcome and to belong.
I am on the outside.
I am outside.
I am.
I am.
I am here.
I am.
I am.
I am
loved.
I am love.
Everyday
I welcome myself home.
Everyday
I remember.
I forget.
I remind myself again.
I belong
… everywhere.
June 20, 2023
Jill Bacharach
