Sense of belonging

A sense of belonging is an important feature of knowing who you really are. Culture in which you’re brought up in, environment in which you grew up, people you shared your experiences with all add up to form ones personality. Is it possible to lose your identity, by moving away from the place you grew up in, leaving the environment you experienced a range of emotions and feelings in? Moving to London, four years ago to study was a huge decision I decided to make, which when put in perspective has not only changed my lifestyle habits but also my outlook on life. Exposure to various types of people, certain difficulty in assimilating into a new culture and the fascination of the new world opening up in front of you alters one’s sense of identity.

Few days ago my friend sent me a quote, by Ijeoma Umebinyuo in which she talks about her experience as a study abroad student. “ So, here you are too foreign for home too foreign for here. Never enough for both” For some reason, I feel a certain affinity with these words, if someone would ask me to write a sentence describing me, I could have used this quote. Assimilation into a new culture, new way of life is hard for any individual to go through. Some accommodate the changes and alter themselves to fit in, while others restrain from changing and keep this sense of a visitor. I completely indulged in the culture, when I came to London. All these small changes, which I had to get accustomed to, new people, new environment was a lot to handle. I was feeling as if I was loosing my identity, my sense of who I am and where I belong. As years passed, London felt more like home and a sense of belonging and not feeling like a visitor everyday I walked to my nearest tube station in order to top up my oyster card, grew. But with this sense of belonging in a foreign country, came a sense of confusion and betrayal. Sense of betrayal grew, because of the feeling of not wanting to leave, not going back to where I grew up, preferring to be in a country I spent four years in to my childhood place, where all my family lives in. Going back home for the holidays, being back in my childhood room, felt strange and I realized that I could not call my hometown my home anymore.

The feeling of being a foreigner never goes in London, where everyone who asks you your nationality still looks at you as a visitor. Even in the most cosmopolitan and diverse cities in the world, the feeling of not belonging never goes away. With the struggle of enjoying living in London, with a sense of not fully belonging came also the feeling of complete confusion with my sense of identity. Back home, everyone started seeing me for the person I had become, for being a visitor there. My family has gotten used to me not being home most of the time, turning my room into a storage place unintentionally and seeing me more of as passer-by. Going back to see some of my old friends, felt odd as I realized I didn't have much in common with them anymore. Huge cultural differences which exist between my hometown and London, has changed me in a way that I am not equipped to live in any of those two places, without feeling as a stranger. Even though London is immensely diverse city, I still don't feel as if I am seen as a native here, while back home I have difficulty to adapt to my old lifestyle.

My sense of belonging is shattered, I’m foreign to the places I grew up and lived in. People go through certain stages in life, which changes their perceptions and identity. In the current era of interconnectedness and huge waves of migration, one would argue its quite normal for an individual to move to a new place and start a new life there. However, there are repercussions to moving away from the place one grew up in, there will always be this sense of confusion about one’s sense of belonging. The question, which I struggle to answer, is: How do you go back to your old self? The life where you grew up in, the place where all your loved ones are, but the place with which you feel no affinity anymore, to which you are a stranger.