Hi there! I’m Karen, and here at On the Outside I write about navigating life with my compass of curiosity, courage and connection, going via adventure and healing. I live amongst the south Welsh mountains, with a hoard of books, a garden full of foxgloves and goldfinches, drinking tea. Basically, a hobbit. Wandering, not lost.
Subscribe to join me on this journey through the truth and beauty of the uncertain and the unknown. With tea.
What is it to feel finally good enough?
Is it a destination to aim for? Or is it the long, winding path I walk? Sometimes the path seems far too long, my feet tripping and stumbling over rocks of insecurity and trying to fit in. Sometimes, I am too weary.
Is it too much to ask for a pat on the back, for a kind word to help us feel like we’ve done a good job? Is seeking validation really so terrible? Or does the validation tell us we’re going in the right direction?
I write words here. People decide they like what they read, so my numbers increase. Validation. Some people even pay. Validation.
But the words, the words given to me in return, those are the smile and the nod that tell me I’ve done a good job, that the effort I put in was beyond the worth I attached to them. They are a warm embrace for the little girl in my heart who always dreamed of being a writer, of being deemed good enough.
I write things here that scare me, sometimes. I write imperfectly. I write last thing at night, eyes tired and heart weary. But all of it, every single word, is worth it. And so am I.
What is home?
A home is many things to many, different people. I have had many over the years. They have each held a different version of me, imprinted on the walls, drifting in the shadows. They’ve listened to my laughter and tears, seen me grow up.
I am the single thing connecting every home I have ever lived in.
They have shaped me. I may even have shaped them. Perhaps a pencil scribble on a wall, unseen for years. Or a scuff from a muddy shoe.
What is it to have lived in a single place from the beginning until now? I marvelled at an old friend in school who mentioned her parents were going to move house, she’d never moved house, she was devastated. What would happen to her childhood room? So many memories embedded in the wallpaper. I was perplexed. She had never moved house? Ever? Since she was a baby?
How do I even talk to her, me who now lives in my twentieth house in thirty-six years of life?
Where are we from?
I step into a large metal shed, watching for the fading yellow lines telling me where to stand, where not to go.
Instantly, a hard hat is placed on my head, tightened, and I’m pointed to the next man. He’s holding a leather belt, waiting for me to step up to him. We’re close in that weird way you can be with strangers for a brief moment.
Then comes the question. “Where do you come from?” asks the man in a cheerful, I’ve-said-this-a-thousand-times-today-but-I-still-genuinely-care sort of way.
I say the first thing that comes to mind. The truth. “I’m not really from anywhere.”
His face falls dramatically. “Oh my god, that’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard!” We’re laughing. It’s funny, right?
Is it?
Do I fit in, or belong?
I learned to wear masks and identities quickly. As easily as changing clothes. A friend dubbed me a ‘social chameleon’. Wherever I went, I could fit in. I could bend and become whatever I needed to be to get on with the other kids, the other adults. I fall into accents swiftly, even adopting ones I have never ‘owned’.
All in a bid to fit in with the new friendship group I found myself thrust into. I can talk to anyone.
These are things I am good at. A lifetime of practice, without even realising I was doing it.
But…
True belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are; it requires you to be who you are. - Brené Brown
I could suddenly see the whole picture. The explanation, the reason behind why I could fit in anywhere and still feel alone. Why I went searching for belonging, and instead found insecurity, narcissists and, thankfully, therapy.
Underneath it all, beneath the masks, the accents, the desperate need to belong, was the ever-present question… Who am I?
When we sacrifice who we are, we not only feel separate from others, but we even feel disconnected from ourselves. - Brené Brown
I am belonging
Writing is my medicine.
Through it, I uncover, excavate the layers of me, of my understanding and my knowing. Of the things I know to be true and the way the truth changes. I see my truth in the way the raindrops cluster like pearls under winter-naked sapling branches, and in the fleeting connection with a stranger on a train who loved to talk, and in the birdsong that bursts through the open bathroom window at precisely the moment I need to hear it to soothe my aching soul. I find it in memories of dancing on cold desert sand beneath an audience of stars, in the breath of the ocean beating its fury against black, volcanic sand. It’s in the smallest forget-me-not bobbing on the spring breeze, and in the hurt so large, I fear I will never be whole again.
Sometimes, I must wander through my truth, playful and curious, never looking too closely. Sometimes, the words are my beating heart, hurled against the sheer cliffs I fear I must climb. Sometimes, they lift me to the stars, with a joy so expansive, I don’t know how I’m able to breathe.
I write to discover who I am, and so I write to heal.
In this, I belong. I am good enough. I am home.
Thank you so much for reading! I want to give a special thanks to
and Bobbe Nunes for deciding to become patrons of On the Outside (Looking In). I’ve been involved in discussions today about how amazing it is to have people pay for writing, and you have genuinely made the little girl dreaming of being a writer really happy. So thank you!If you enjoyed this, please consider ‘tipping’ me. It’s a great way to support my writing (and me, obviously) and gives us both warm fuzzies. A win-win!
If that’s not your thing, please share this with someone you think will enjoy it. I write to connect with people, and that would make my day!
I’m taking part in the Essay Club run by Claire Venus. This is essay 7/24 to be published by 31st Jan 2025.
Thank goodness for writing and reading other's writing to help us understand ourselves better. Thank you for sharing this piece of you, you are not alone. 💕
Beautifully expressed.
I have found such a sense of belonging since I started writing on here. Something about coming back to writing made me feel like I was coming back to the essence of who I was.