Enriched and Hollowed out

I watched Anthony Bourdain as he was leaving a jungle village in Malaysia and he said something that reverberated in my bones. " I don't feel like I belong here, but I also don't feel like I belong back in New York anymore-- is it possible to be enriched and hollowed out at the same time?" He said that with this look in his eye that seem to say he was deeply pained. Or was it just my imagination, knowing that it is me who was pained by the statement.

I want to live in Spain, in Malaysia, in Cebu or wherever just as long as it is different. I say that all the time, but when I think about moving to another apartment outside of the same area I am used to, I dread and I fear. Confused? yes. Restless? yes.

When I travel, I travel alone and that's the way I prefer it unless it is with a boyfriend or husband. I have no problem getting on a plane( alone) and go to another totally foreign country but at home, I go to the same gas station, same restaurant, same grocery store. Outside of that familiarity, I don't venture out because I don't do well if I do. I have tried to analyze myself on why I do what I do. I could come up with an acceptable excuse but not a valid answer. I don't think a psychiatrist is necessary because I feel that as long as I want to analyze myself, then I must still be ok. I need a psychiatrist to write prescriptions to knock me out of my lunacy sometimes but even that I am hesitant to do, because someone said (was it Willie Nelson) that he is glad to be crazy because "it keeps him from going insane."

This question of "sense of belonging" has haunted me constantly. I know that God created us with this need to be needed, the need to feel wanted and the need to belong. When we don't feel any one of these needs, then we are in trouble. Hardness and bitterness will set in if we lose the right perspective on these things. God has granted me the favor of being well liked by most people, but I have to tell you, before I developed a personal relationship with Jesus, I did not accept this favor, this gift from God. So I walked around with this chip on my shoulder, feeling sorry for myself, unwanted and mad at everyone. I do not want to go back there, but every once in a while, I feel the old self resurfacing and this happens mostly when I feel trapped by financial restrictions. I only have 2 vices -travel and spa treatments, oh and food. As long as I am able to do these things, I don't feel trapped, thus I am happy.

So let me go back to whatever my point of this rant was; being enriched and hollowed out at the same time. Yes, it is possible to feel both at the same time. But right now, I am only feeling hollowed, so I better drive over to some market and be enriched. At least, temporarily.