At Home?

Have you thought about the feeling of displacement?

I was born to two Army Doctors. This meant that every two years we shifted lock, stock and barrel, to a new city, new climate, new friends, new school, new teachers and so on. I have always wondered about all the affects this lifestyle has had on me. I can vouch for a zillion ways this has shaped me; And a few more. But one of the things I wondered the most about was the feeling of belonging/feeling displaced.

While I was growing up, and probably because that is the only way of life  I knew till I moved to my last school in Kerala, I always believed I could not imagine surviving in one school in one city for more than two years. In fact, after I came to Kerala, I remember asking my mother repeatedly to change my school because "I just couldn't take it anymore". Now, there were several reasons why I could just NEVER fit into the school in Kerala. That should be material for another post. Or several. But at that time I assumed that my body clock just told me that my time here was up. Eventually, I realized that there were no more moves for me, at least not till I finished school and decided to leave on my own. Not the "my world moves with me" kind anymore. And I was miserable. I was convinced, my system was convinced, that I just had to set myself up in a new city and get a new bunch of friends.

Well, my point is, all this time I was sure that I was always used to moving and could get myself to feel like I belong there for however long or short duration I stayed there and not feel displaced. For me, wherever mom and dad were was home. No matter which city and what house.

Then Kerala happened. When I came to Kerala I never felt that I belonged here even though it is the longest I have ever stayed in one city till date. It simply felt like a long, torturous but temporary phase. Like an in-between to belonging. Like a transient uncomfortable place that I had to simply get out of to start being me again. This wasn't me. These weren't mine. THEY weren't mine. I could never belong. I was ALWAYS an outsider.

Funny thing, this displacement. I realized it has nothing to do with a place. So you could finally be living among "Your own" people, relatives, friends your parents have known forever, people who speak your "mother tongue", a home your parents have built for themselves finally, a place of permanence after all that moving about and here I was totally completely displaced. Totally completely. An alien.

Finally when I got to leave, this time on my own travails, I went to a few more cities, to study, or work; lived in college hostels and PG and my own apartments and wherever I went, I managed to go right back to being at "home". Yes, there have been instances when I have felt alone, once again like an outsider, like  couldn't stay anymore. But those were phases and they had specific reasons or incidences attached to them. I knew where those feelings were originating from. But the bigger picture was that I managed to more or less feel comfortable in my own  skin wherever. And then circumstances brought me back here, to where "home" is. Again. Once again, in the last 6 years, this has been the  2nd longest I have stayed in a city, the 1st being the same city. And once again, I am floating in this transience. Everyone is an outsider in my life. I just cannot let people in. I can't understand why people function the way they function. Why families, hate and plot and fail. Why everyone gossips about each other. And then get together and celebrate each other's joys and share each others' sorrows. And then goes back to finding faults. I really am not a part of this, of them. Once again, I am displaced. Not at home; At Home.