Divided

Picture by Emil Schildt

I'm not South African… and yet I am.
I'm not Madeiran…. And yet I am.
I'm not Portuguese…. And yet I am.
I'm without a doubt, an immigrant.

There are a lot of things the heart doesn't know and should.
One of them is that it's physically impossible to be in two places at the same time. Perhaps if the soul knew this, it wouldn't be so divided when the heart decides to belong in two places.
If home is where the heart is then I'm a citizen of the world…
I belong here, there and nowhere.
I wouldn't say I'm lost, but neither am I found.
It's a constant nagging of the spirit that reminds you that something’s missing; that tells you that you're not where you're supposed to be.
But if you ask your heart where it wants to be, it gives you more than one destination including the place you find yourself in presently.

A Jamaican in New York?
If you want to feel like an alien, try being a South African in Portugal. Or even a Portuguese in South Africa. You'll find that in whichever country you may be in, it's your latter roots that speak to you the strongest.
Wherever you are, your heart pulls to wherever you were and you find yourself only at peace in the belly of an airplane.
Because up in the air, you're neither here nor there… you're in between.

Exactly five years after leaving the country where I'd been raised and educated, I went back. Four weeks… the time given to get reacquainted with my past and to analyze my present. It's been a month since I've been back from South Africa, and I still feel out of place… As if the shoes I wear aren't mine.
As if I am an imposter in my own body.

In South Africa, I looked in the mirror and was Portuguese.
In Portugal, I look in the mirror and I'm South African.
It's the constant pull of a heritage you're not quite sure is yours. The minute you identify more with the one, an inner voice accuses you of betraying the other.

I woke up this morning with the anxiety felt when late for school. Did I remember to iron my shirts for work? Did I fall asleep while I was studying? I have to recheck to see if I have a spare toner in the cupboard….
My head lifts itself off the pillow in an attempt to make sense out of things.
Where am I?
As the images around me come into focus, I notice that it's still dark and that the patterns on my sheets aren't familiar… or are they?
A few more seconds and it hit me… I'm neither in South Africa nor Madeira.
I'm in Lisbon.
Truth is, I'm not sure whether to be happy or sad about it.

During the day, I tell myself to focus more on my grammar in order to improve the Portuguese level I need for varsity. At night, I scold myself for not immediately remembering the English translation for some or other particular word. I panic on catching myself thinking in Portuguese and it breaks my heart that all my brilliant results in the English language have gone to waste.

My South African upbringing tells me to walk into every situation giving the benefit of the doubt, my Portuguese experience tells me to walk into things with one foot back…
It's not wonder, sometimes I feel like I'm going crazy.
I have my Portuguese friends… I have my South African friends…
They don't mix.
It's not a form of racism, they simply don't identify with each other and I identify with both… or do I?

I don't allow my surroundings to influence or dictate my personality.
And yet… lately I ask myself… who is it that I want to be?
If I already am the person I want to be, where do I fit in?
Perhaps I'm not meant to…
Being an immigrant is a culture all on its own.
It implies to live with the longing… of never truly fitting in.

The mind is never at peace when the heart longs for it's other half.

I was challenged to write a post in Portuguese. The challenged part of me wants to try, yet the other half reminds me that this blog was created to honour my “native” language. The language I was educated in, the language in which I think in and the language I don’t want to forget. I've never written a post in Portuguese nor do I have the desire to maintain two separate blogs… I'll have to think about it.

There are days, where the longing is so desperate that it drives me insane and then there are others where I near forget about it.
One a day I nearly went mad, I was grateful for the comfort of a friend that said “You're literally a teammate” it made me realize that I do belong in somewhere, somehow.

As long as I'm this or that, I'm not all things.
Divided, am I still a whole person.
I am who am I am and make no apologies for I wouldn't want to be anyone else.
I may not fit completely in anywhere,
But as long as I'm not defined, it means I can't be catalogued or copied.
I'm comforted by the fact, that I'll always be the person I want to be.
If that makes me the odd one out, it also means I'm an original.
Those that truly care about me know that what makes me deep down who I truly am isn't defined by time, place, distance, age, language or culture…. Those are just the surrounding pieces to the heart of the puzzle.