Untangling little pieces of self

“You’re like me,” my partner says. “A floater.”

I’m on the outside, looking in.

“You might not have been with me if you’d fit in a mold. I might not have been with you.”

Bumping my nose against the glass, leaving an embarrassing smear of oil on it. The more I rub at it with my spacesuit sleeve, the more it melts into it, lengthens, stretches.

I discuss the concept of ‘floaters’ with a coworker of mine as we down the stairs to the corporate parking lot. A truck offering free mini donuts doles out bag after bag after bag of steaming, sugary goods. We crimp our bags closed as we head back up the stairs.

“I thought you might understand,” I say. We’ve discussed similar topics before, of our experiences of the isolation of growing up in a small town and not following the same paths as those in our classes. “You know what it’s like to feel like you live a different life from the ‘traditional one’.”

He nods. We agree that there’s a loneliness to it. Nonetheless, we as humans are social animals. We require connection regardless. On one side, being with others is exhausting and on the other, we still crave that feeling of being understood. Of fitting in.

Floaters. Astronauts out in the beyond, occasionally bumping into or boarding a ship.

We talk about the feeling of not belonging to any one group in particular, but rather needing to move from one group to another. I bring up how in a way we’re needed, to bring perspective to others. Take what we’ve learned and pass it on. Bring a fresh element to the groups that talk in cycles and cycles and cycles about the same, same, same things. It’s not a bad thing. To floaters, it’s simply a boring thing.

“What were you like in high school?” My coworker asks. The bag of mini donuts warms my hands in the stairwell. I tell him I wanted to be part of the mold, follow the traditional ways of ways. I thought I’d have the house, the family, the dogs. Then I gesture to the FOB attached to the lanyard around my neck. The symbol of the 'career woman' I’ve become. Quite the unexpected turn.

“Did you belong to any particular group back then?” He asks.

I shake my head. “Did you?”

“No. I didn’t belong to any group, but I could talk to anyone from any group.”

“Me too.”

Floaters.

I remember my partner saying that out of my siblings, I appear to be more individualistic. As the others have followed what seems to be the predetermined path, I walk my own way. I don’t go where I don’t want to go. I’m a quiet stubborn dog yanking on the leash and sinking to the ground when the pull is in a direction I don’t like. But it's in a milder way. A quieter way. I'd go with the flow if it was what felt good. If it was where I wanted to go.

"It's like a circle," I say, waving a hand. "It doesn't mean to be exclusive, it just is. I feel like I'm on the outside but sometimes I'm in."

"Yes. But tell me something." He pauses, and I stop with him. He leans against the wall and crosses his arms. "When you are in the circle, how do you feel?"

It feels embarrassing to admit it, the answer I suddenly know he knows is coming, but I say it anyway. "I can fake it for a while, until I make it, but eventually I want to leave."

He smiles. "We enter the circle," he nods, "and then we want to go. So we float."

We talk about energy, how the people grounded can have the energy to talk about the same things over and over again for seemingly their entire lives. We agree that floaters have much energy to go between groups, but staying within one group for too long will deplete that energy entirely. I walk back to my desk deep in thought and fish out a perfect little donut.

When initially labelled, I felt a certain defensiveness. I can’t be a floater, I think. I have attachments. I have people I love, things and people to whom I’m tethered. But do they stay long? If they’re the right people, they do. If they’re not, they don’t. I go through phases of things I enjoy, like anyone else, but return to content of comforts and familiarity. I go. I come back.

Yes, I float. I put the helmet on and wander back out into the star-pitted sky. But sometimes I come back. Sometimes I bring back a fresh perspective from the last ship I may have docked on. Sometimes I help a ripple effect ripple just a little further beyond.

Sometimes I don’t wait to be included. Sometimes I don’t want to be included at all. Lift a gloved hand to wave to the starship that passes while I tinker at my newest pet project.

I eat at my desk and I think that floaters may be a little different, a little lonely, a little transient, but a little necessary to what is human connection.

I wipe the sugar off my fingers and type in a message to my coworker, across the room.

“You know what, we’re floaters, yes – but I think we may be bridges too.”