The search for belonging turned into a big question: Who am I?
At the age of six, my family moved from Indonesia to the Netherlands and then to Germany. The shift was seismic. Imagine going from backwater Sulawesi’s evergreen lushness to the urban grays of Europe during winter. It left me feeling uprooted, like a fish out of water.
Everything, from culture to language and climate, changed drastically, and set the stage for a lifelong quest to belong.
Basically, I was a migrant child, and this experience colored everything I did afterward. Throughout my life, I sought a sense of belonging, yet it remained elusive. I wasn’t acknowledged as German, but neither was I recognized as Indonesian. Everywhere, I ended up being like a perpetual outsider. I didn’t fit into the dentists’, the artists’, or the spiritual community.
So, the search for belonging turned into a big question: Who am I?
The answer came as a revelation: that the red thread weaving through all my experiences was me being ‘in-between.’ I am neither solely this nor solely that, but a blend of both – ‘neither-nor’ transformed into ‘and.’
‘Belonging’ isn’t about fitting into ready-made molds or conforming to existing standards but it is about embracing not just our otherness or uniqueness but also the messiness that makes us who we are.
It’s not an external scavenger hunt; it’s more like exploring our own backyard. The path to discovering our sense of belonging is within ourselves. By reclaiming those parts we’ve pushed away, neglected or denied we gain an awareness of our fragmented identity.
In learning to fully accept our own messiness, we unite every part, even the parts that are difficult or undesirable, forming a whole. In the end, we return to ourselves, right into the core of who we are, finding a profound sense of home within the depths of our own being.
What’s your take on belonging?
Yours,
ljs [eldʒeɪˈes]
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