Sojourner Passing Through

Like many others, 2020 jolted me from my host country and tossed me back to my passport country for an undetermined amount of time. The unexpected change after trying desperately to grow roots in my host country felt like a splash of cold water after a deep sleep: unwelcomed and disorienting. I found myself feeling very out of place and unsettled in a space where I was supposed to fit in. The following is from journal entries that I wrote in an attempt to put my thoughts and feelings into words.

5/6/2020

Change. It’s hard. Weird. Weird that everyone around me has moved on. Weird that I’m visiting their current lives while living my own life in pause. In pause. Sifting through the past. Trying to make meaning and purpose out of the present. A hushness blows over the still fields. Not a car in sight. Blue skies don’t show up here everyday. The usual island breeze has been replaced with jolting winds. There’s something here that doesn’t seem right. Something that doesn’t quite fit; it appears to be me. I don’t know why I thought that I could slide back in. I thought that with my light skin, blonde hair and perfect English, that this would be the place that I could finally fit in. My regular grocery store has been remodeled, and I can’t find anything. The restaurant that I used to go to once a month for their monthly ice cream deal evidently no longer runs the deal anymore. Of course, things have changed. The world doesn’t just freeze for 2 years. I haven’t frozen for 2 years, and that’s why I no longer fit.

5/18/2020

I throw on my borrowed rain jacket. I slip on some borrowed sandals, and head out to my old Buick. The Buick that my family technically owns, but I drove it all throughout college, so it pretty much feels like mine. Probably the most consistent thing in my life right now, which is saying a lot, since it has more dysfunctions than I can count using my fingers. I tug the gear in reverse and head out on the road. Reverse. But really, that’s what I’m doing, reversing onto the old and familiar roads. Roads that hold memories. Significant and sweet. Yet only memories. As I drive, I flip to the Spanish station, hoping that if I listen enough, I’ll magically become fluent. One could only hope. I feel like such a weirdo: borrowed clothes, borrowed car, disconnected phone and all. It’s actually a wee bit freeing. I know that I don’t belong. I shouldn’t belong. But it’s still a weird sensation. The sensation of a journeyer, in borrowed clothes, just passing through.

After a few months in the US waiting for borders to reopen, I returned to the Dominican Republic for another three years until moving back to my passport country. Upon my return, as I drive down the same old and familiar roads, the struggle continues—the feeling of being tugged in between two places, and the fear that allowing myself to belong and fit in in one place will be a transactional trade for my allegiance to the other. At moments, my heart aches for it to all feel complete, but that’s the beauty of this sojourning life: I am reminded that we’re all on a journey, in borrowed clothes, just passing through.

Could the discomfort of juggling two worlds be an invitation God has given us to fix our eyes toward him? What are some “I don’t belong here” moments that you’ve experienced? How might your perspective shift if you accepted his invitation?