In my particular case, I grew up straddled between class and racial lines. My mother is from a well-to-do WASP family (As in my maternal grandmother went to Vassar, yeah…), whereas my father is a first-generation American, who although he managed through hard work to get his masters, came from a very poor and dysfunctional background. It was always weird for me going to visit one side of the family or the other. I had one grandma who lived in a gorgeous Georgian-Revival shaded by 100 year old maples while my other grandmother literally lived in the projects. I felt like around my maternal grandmother’s people I didn’t fit in because I didn’t look like them and didn’t see the world as they did, but at the same time I didn’t fit in around my father’s family because I talked like a “white girl” and my suburban style of dress was deemed “stupid” or “dorky”. (Yes, my cousins were so kind, lol). Oh and there was that time one of my cousins (dad’s side) robbed a bank and got his mug shot pasted all over the local news. Yeah, that went over real well in my private high school…

Even today, I still don’t feel completely as if I belong in any particular group or place, only with certain individuals. I have 4 or 5 close friends with whom I feel completely at ease-even though we’re not from the same backgrounds. One of friends said that we’re cosmopolitans-due to our upbringing we’ve been exposed to so many different ways of seeing and doing things that we can’t bring ourselves to settle for just one. Some of us are really good at blending in; I think we became chameleons as a form of self-defense. But, when we’re all together it’s like we get each other perfectly and no one says “Oh, you’re so weird!” in a derogatory way. And we just feel so at ease.

There are still times when it bothers me (no sense of perfect belonging) and I wonder why I see things so differently. Why does everyone else see the zebra while I only see the stripes, lol? I guess I was feeling that way when I came upon this post (I actually started reading another post on a completely different subject). Thanks for sharing it. Maybe you don’t feel the same way I do necessarily, but it was nice to see that someone’s feelings echoed mine in some way, however remotely.