Who are we when we have nowhere to go?
I still get a small pang of regret when I walk by a college campus. It’s so easy to remember what it feels like to be a part of it. The excitement of the lush quad lawn. The possibilities available just through the ivied entrance. The gravitas of buildings that have been standing for over a century.
I used to think that pang I felt was regret over a life lost. Over giving up the dream of being a college professor. Of truly belonging to those spaces, and knowing that I deserved to be there.
As I’ve made my peace with leaving that life behind, I’ve since realized that pang is something else. It’s a yearning for being part of a space like that. Of having somewhere to go that feels like an integral part of my identity. The college campus is not unique in offering this; it’s just really good at it.
Capitalism tells us that our worth is defined by what we do and the things we buy. Your job is supposed to be the primary thing that gives you meaning and defines your identity. Then, the things you wear, the things you eat, how you spend your time: these will all act as signifiers that communicate that identity to the world.
Ultimately, I think, this is why spaces have such a particular hold over me. When I’m in a space, it feels like my identity is more legible. It helps me communicate who I am and what I stand for. I might not own “my” special reading nook in the library or “my” favorite view from “my” classroom, but I feel like, in part, they are mine. And they help define who I am. They assure me that I belong here. I deserve to be here.
When you stop going places, though, a little bit of that sense of identity gets whittled away.
I struggled with this a lot just after I was diagnosed with lupus. Not long after being diagnosed, I moved to the SF Bay Area to live with my fiance, recover, and finish my dissertation. That final year of dissertation-writing was rough. I was stuck inside a tiny condo, uprooted from my campus, with nowhere to go and nothing to do but write. Also, too much sun or too much time out and about really wore me out. I really couldn’t go anywhere, or I would have no energy to keep working. All around me, though, everyone was bustling. In the land of tech start-ups, everyone’s identities were super wrapped up in their corporate perks, their stylish offices, their expense accounts. But, I just had the four walls of my house and a chapter to finish.
There was one day that I took a brief writing break to do laundry. I took it out of the dryer, put it on the floor, and laid down on it. I couldn’t get up for a really long time. The thought of nowhere to go but back to my chapter weighed so heavily on me. I wouldn’t have said I was depressed at the time, but I probably was. Not having anywhere to go, in an economy filled with so many high-achievers who’d constantly go from their Lyfts to their workplaces to their happy hours, made me feel like I didn’t matter.
It was only after I finished my dissertation that I really put effort into getting out of this funk. The thing was, dissertation or not, there’s a reality to lupus and a limit to my energy: I can never be someone who works outside the home for 40+ hour weeks. Even if I’m in an indoor office, constantly being around people and being exposed to indirect UV really wears on me.
I’m not sure when it happened exactly, but sometime between now and then, I’ve started making peace with not being able to go to all the places I want to go to. Part of it was finding a work-from-home-job, part of it was investing more heavily in my virtual communities, and part of it was learning to define myself in ways that didn’t require the hustle-and-bustle of busy spaces. At the risk of sounding too “woo-woo”: a large part of it has been about rediscovering the joy of nature. Now that I live in the Pacific Northwest, I can go outside a lot more without the sun sapping my strength. I can take a calming walk each day, be quiet in nature, breathe, and center myself. I can walk to the top of the park and look out over the city and the cars. I can run up flights of staircases that cut through my neighborhood. Being in nature might not come with a degree or a 401K or promises of promotion; It might not have a meticulously-manicured quad or regal entrances meant to signal prestige and wealth.
But, it has views, moss, fresh air, and trees. And more importantly, it’s not there to define me. It’s there to tell me that, in the midst of it all, I’m pretty small.
I know everyone’s feeling really cooped up right now. You feel like the walls are pressing in. There’s no office to go to. No bar to drink at. No new menu to sample. I’m not trying to tell you that coping with this will be easy. But, there are ways beyond it. For me, it was nature. For you, it might be something else. But, regardless, it’s never too late to ask: who are you when you have nowhere to go? You might find that it’s worth figuring out.
