I imagine that being in no man’s land would be quite scary and lonely. Between two different places or sides. Alone. Wondering whether to retreat or advance, but cut off from your troops.
I’ve been reflecting recently and I feel, to a certain extent, that I’m in no man’s land. If I wanted to be less dramatic and less poetic, I guess I could also talk about being in limbo*, but I rather like the imagery and the metaphor of being between two different nationalities or places. It suits my purposes quite well. Unfortunately that’s as far as the metaphor can go though haha. I was trying to make it work for shots being fired and further the metaphor like that but it doesn’t really work. And I want to make it clear that the metaphor is somewhat flawed in that I am certainly not saying that there’s a war between people here and people in England, but I’m talking more about how it feels for me, being in the middle of two different worlds.
I’m in Argentina, but I’m not Argentinian. I’m pretty used to being here but the Argentinian way still doesn’t come completely natural to me. I can’t arrive somewhere and immediately start gushing about it. I don’t always know the right thing to say. I still find basic life things hard to do sometimes, due to the language or differences in how things are done here. I’m still British, but I’m not there, so I’m also cut off from my home culture. I’m between the two. I belong to both and I belong to neither at the same time.
Contrary to how it might seem, I’m not actually saying this with that much emotion involved. I was just pondering about it lately (it actually came to my mind when thinking about football. I was a bit sad that I can’t watch the British football matches and feel part of Britain and my culture. I can watch the Argentinian matches here, with Nolz and his family, and feel a little bit part of something. But it’s different because it’s not my country. And I was thinking about the death of Prince Philip. Something so important in my home culture, where the whole country feels kind of unified for a moment, but I was here and not part of such an important thing to happen in my country).
But anyways, where I was going, was that whilst it leaves me in quite a lonely position at points, there’s also good in it. I’m in a position where my mind is open to different ways of doing things and different perspectives. And whilst it’s hard to have a different perspective, I’m quite excited, with Nolz, to start our own little unit and take the things that we like from each of our culture’s and form our own family culture. Both cultures have things that I love and things that I don’t love so much, and being in the middle point, between the two places, gives me, and us, a very unique perspective.
It also struck me, as I was reflecting on this, that actually there’s someone who understands what I’m going through. Well, two someone’s. As a Christian, it’s encouraging to me to think of Jesus as a foreigner on this earth. Belonging but not belonging, having such a different mindset from all of those around him. But also, amazingly I hadn’t thought of this until recently, Noly too. About four and a bit years ago, Nolz lived in England for six months with a Latin Link programme. He, my main source of support here, can understand better than anyone how I might feel. Obviously not 100% as we all react to things differently and things that I might find hard will be different than things for him, but having lived it himself, but in reverse, he actually does know how it feels, not just from a theoretical basis, but from a practical being there, having lived it himself basis.
So anyways. These are just some of my thoughts that have been going round in my head. If you read my post before last, which was all a bit sad, I can assure you that I’m feeling a lot better than I was when I wrote that post, even if perhaps this blog post is rather sombre. Things are still hard and a challenge, and I think they will be for a while, but I’m feeling more emotionally stable and trying to put in measures to help myself, and be kind to myself. In amongst all the things that I have been finding difficult and a challenge recently there have also been some really exciting life stuff going on! But I’ll fill you in on that next time 😉
*since writing this post I have been informed that being in limbo is in fact very poetic and goes back to medieval theology! Didn’t even realise it has links to heaven and hell in meaning. I’m my mind when I think of limbo I just think of waiting between one thing and another. And I think of inception, as they talk about being in limbo there I believe! 😂
The last thing I wanted to say- any of my friends/family/blog readers who pray, I would really appreciate prayers at the moment. Specifically for:
– various physical ailments that I have (jaw problems and underactive thyroid- doesn’t help with my emotions). And in fact, I’ve got a very sore throat again now and I suspect I might be coming down with pharinghitis once again which is making me feel somewhat fed up
– strength and perseverance through the tricky stuff that I’m going through at the moment.
– deeper friendships where I can share these types of things with. Making deep friendships is difficult in another country and even more so during a pandemic, but I think this would do me a world of good.
– wisdom on if and when I can go home to England this year.
Nadia's Adventures 