There are moments when I catch myself not knowing where I am — a smell, a color, a street sound pulls me into a past version of myself I forgot I still carried.
As I’ve lived in many places, I’ve learned to adapt, to blend, but never quite completely. Romanian heart. European eye. International palate. Buffalo zip code. A curious mix of close and distant, familiar and unfamiliar — all wrapped into one self.
Some days I wonder what it means to belong. Not just to a place, but to a time, a way of life, a single version of myself. Am I more at home in my childhood memories, the quiet space of my Buffalo house, or in my creative mind that anchors me wherever I am?
Imagination has always been a safe place to belong. When the world eludes me, I can build any meaning I like in my mind — a place where time and space float beyond any map. Grief, too, carved a space I still don’t know how to fill — and maybe I don’t have to. It’s a reminder that love can leave holes, and at the same time, that it’s part of the whole, too.
I’ve come to understand that feeling whole isn’t about belonging to a single place or a single culture. It’s not about having joy and no grief. It’s about the ability to carry all the pieces together. This is not fragmentation, it’s integration. This is not confusion, it’s depth. I don’t have to choose just one story or one version of me to make sense — not to myself and not to others.
As the light lingers longer each day and spring rapidly stretches into summer, I can still feel the winter in my bones — the same way I can feel all the pieces that form a whole me.
I can definitely relate to the many cultural identities or lack of a predominant one. I’m grateful for all of them even if like you, I have moments when I feel like I don’t fully belong.
Totally! Comforting to know I’m not alone feeling this way 🙂