Alien Feelings

I’m pulling out an older one for you all today. I’ve started a few other posts and nothing seems right. This one doesn’t either, but it’s the most finished. And sometimes you’ve just got to take the most finished thing and put it out there.

I wrote this 3 years ago when I was just entering my first romantic relationship after my marriage ended. We were in that agonizing phase of figuring out the implications of our feelings for each other. I was debating whether or not to go for the long-term relationship or if I’d try my hand at something seasonal. The long-term option won out, though it should have been seasonal. Some lessons need to be learned the hard way, I suppose.

I still like this piece, even though the specific relationship it’s referring to is dead and buried (Hallelujah). Something about it rings true because I still fall into those agonies. I’m more aware of the outsider feelings when they happen, and I realize it’s not just something that comes up with crushes. It happens in my friendships too – especially the newer ones. I often feel that I’m an alien in a human skin and I’m struck by the feeling of being outside, not belonging, of being exposed and rejected. I used to wallow in these feelings or suppress them. There was no middle ground. Now I recognize them as something that a lot of people feel from time to time and that they tell me something about how much I value authenticity and connectedness. The discomfort that comes is far less distressing these days.

This preamble has been far too long, so here it is, from about this time, 2016:

I started 6th grade late. I missed Titanic, Hanson, and Spice Girls. I thought the Backstreet Boys, 98 Degrees, et al were a load of sex-crazed crock. And yet, I started 6th grade at Greenwood Middle School. On picture day. I wore jeans, an embroidered blouse, and an amber cross necklace from Russia. I was homeschooled 4th and 5th grade. I had quit school a few times in 4th grade, maybe once in 5th too. I don’t remember. We tried homeschooling again for a few weeks, but it just wasn’t working. That’s why I started 6th grade late.

I’d never been in a school so big. I took it one class at a time, but there was this moment in math class when the enormity of this change came crashing in on me. We were taking a quiz. Just a short little pop quiz. The words “average, median, mode, and range” glared up at me. I knew “average” but the other words had no context. There was nothing else in the quiz to clue me in on what mathematical operations those other 3 words described. This wasn’t playground games with forgiving Russian kids who would patiently explain in simpler Russian or in beginner’s English or by pantomiming or just the pure, universal language of play. This was my education, and I was missing something. I was always missing something since we got back. I couldn’t handle it anymore, so I cried. I was quiet, but a classmate noticed and alerted the teacher. She was sweet about it – told me she wouldn’t count this quiz and reassured me that the material was pretty new for everyone. She was right. I wasn’t that behind and was able to excel in class shortly thereafter.

Tonight, over 17 years later, I find myself emotional for very similar reasons. I feel I have missed something important and have possibly committed some egregious faux pas in the process. Just as my 11 year-old self scorned secular boy bands, my 20’s self has scorned the way romance works these days. Overall, I think of this as a positive – weird and good. But every now and then I feel like a complete alien and it is overwhelming. I feel romantic feelings and I want so much to share myself, but I don’t understand (or really care to understand) the game that is Modern American Romance. All I know is that I care incredibly for a splendid human, and I want to know and be known, to see and be seen, to hear and be heard. And most of the time, I feel those things without a trace of doubt or fear.

But every now and then, my own “other-ness” hits me like a ton of bricks and I might as well be back at Greenwood Middle School, feeling the immensity of missing things.

My Third Culture tendency to rush intimacy makes it feel that what I’m doing is natural. Until I realize what it may seem like from another perspective. I will dive right in with both feet, but I worry that, in the process, maybe I’m pushing a dear one into deep water unexpectedly, which is risky and could cause pain later on.

Here are the facts: I’m not going to follow a formula. I’m going to have a somewhat counter-cultural approach to romance. I am going to jump in.

I don’t want to be afraid of my weirdness, but sometimes I am. Sometimes, I am that 11 year-old crying in math class because I fear my offbeat life has lead me to miss something or make a devastating mistake. The discomfort can be overwhelming.

I am learning to be more comfortable with myself in general, but also in my approach to relationships (romantic or otherwise) specifically. Reading bell hooks helps put words to my desires. To use her train of thought, I want to live an authentic life guided by an ethic of love. Perfect love drives out fear (a paraphrase of 1 John 4:18). Living an ethic of love means there should be no place for fear. In place of fear, I seek gratitude and contentment. In place of fear, I seek peace. I am learning to replace “perfection” with “perfecting” because it is a journey and a process, not a finite destination.