Every time I take the turn round the corner, a wave of familiarity gushes all over me. I know this place, I know this road, I know the dogs wagging their tails. That old man who hurls abuses at his wife without a second thought. All of it.
Yet, if I step out of this radius for like a mile, I will easily lose my way if it weren’t for maps on my phone.
I was born without a sense of direction, but thankfully, only half a nail on my left index finger. It has been my compass, to help me from left to right. Be it during PT classes in school, or taking a turn on my scooty or the car.
You would expect to live in a city for over a decade and know your locality like the back of your hand. I don’t. Neither do I fret over it.
Isn’t that a very common feeling? To know that I do not belong anywhere? As a migrant, as a renter, as a woman, this feeling never goes away. The urge to chart out my life in maps and to-do lists, only for it all to crumble because the city keeps changing. And my life is not ready to house this constant internal and external movement.
All my childhood I kept living in fear of having to move, never seeking permanence in relationships and friendships (cue for my therapist here). So I never felt the need to fully know or remember how to reach somewhere.
And now, with technology, I have outsourced it to a tiny app on my phone, which guides me and leads me everywhere I need to go.
I do not know my way home. And I do not know where I belong. I remember a lot of places, and people who belonged to those places, but I did not belong to them either.
I will be fine, I think. With this not knowing, someday.
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