I Don't Belong

Yesterday I felt like I didn't belong anywhere. I stood in our apartment and watched a lady stand in the middle of the road to wait for the bus. Cars flew by her within inches and honked and she didn't budge. There was something wrong with the woman, obviously. She looked homeless. This seemed normal to me but at the same time crazy. There were other people at the busstop who didn't flinch as this was going on. This situation was "more normal" to them than it was to me. I don't quite fit here.

Then last night I went out for dinner/drinks with some moms from my Mom's Group. We all live in Jersey City and when we break up for prayer at our meeting, the Jersey City moms always group together. There were 5 of us. We went to a fun place downtown which everyone knew but me and ordered things off the menu that were their "favorites." I was just in awe of #1 being outside at night and looking at the lights of the tall condos and office buildings and #2 Watching the people walk around with no sense of danger. Both things we don't have in the part of Jersey City where we live. The moms talked about visiting museums in the city with their kids, feeling too tired to take the subways and taking taxis instead, and a mess of other things. To which all of them I just listened and thought, "I don't belong in their world. I don't live in a skycraper condo on the waterfront overlooking Manhattan. My husband doesn't work in the city and make tons of money. I can't afford to do crazy things every week in the city with Aylah...... I couldn't relate. Sometimes I find it easier to relate to the moms in Jersey City and Hoboken, but last night I didn't. I just don't belong.

So as I was pondering my feelings and trying to figure them out as I came home last night, I realized I felt stuck between 2 worlds. I zipped my way through the streets of "inner-city" Jersey City, taking all the shortcuts, and pulled up outside New City feeling like I had just been transported to a new world in a matter of 2 miles. As I lay in bed later I figured out just what my feelings were; I don't belong.

Maybe I will feel that way the whole time we're here, or maybe I'll figure out ways to transition better from one to another but still feel like myself. Whatever I do, maybe it's good that I have that feeling that I don't belong. Maybe that's how God wants it to be? He wants me to not hold too tightly to this world and not feel like any part of it is my "home." But instead desire for his home more than anything else in this world.