"We spend so much time trying to make other people comfortable that oftentimes we don't even know what makes us happy. It's exhausting."
I read this line and cried. No, I sobbed. I'm so tired. I felt this line deep in the recesses of my unawakened parts. Then, I felt shame. Was it because I was embarrassed that I know better yet I still fall prey to the cultural expectations? Sure, maybe, partly. The greater shame came in feeling like I didn't have the right to share in the same pain as the author of that line. They are Alok Vaid-Menon. They are non-binary and have been and continue to be mercilessly shamed for who they are. Yet through it all, they exude more love and compassion than anyone I have ever witnessed. I know what I look like. I am acutely aware of my privilege. Did I really have the right to feel the depth of pain they felt when my life has been culturally easy? I have not been shamed for how I look. I was able to seamlessly fit into the world that was specifically created for me and bodies that look like mine. Yet, it doesn't make me happy. I don't want to belong there. In that shame I found my dissonance. I don't belong to the cultural world because the fit is too tight. I don't belong to the marginalized world because I am the right trend. Where do I belong? Do I even belong anywhere? Of course, Alok had that answer for me as well. "Over time, I learned that where I was taught dissonance, I found harmony. This beard, this skirt, this love: There are no contradictions here, there is just someone trying to figure it out. Someone very similar to and very different from you." I did have the right to feel what I was feeling because I am the same as them as much as I am different. The more I find belonging within myself, the more I feel I fit in. Only, I don't fit in with a group. I fit in with myself wherever I go. Because where I go changes everyday. I have so much shedding left to do of the cultural imprint drilled into me since birth. This is not the easy path. This is a True path. Fortunately, I have wise, loving mentors who bravely walked the path before me reaching out an undeserved hand ready to help guide me home.
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AuthorMelinda Lee is a mom of two adolescent boys, a devout student of all things spiritual, a recovering perfectionist, and immensely fascinated with achieving the unachievable. Currently writing a memoir about hugging strangers. Archives
February 2023
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