It’s a strange way to grow up, belonging everywhere and nowhere at once. I grew up with a Polish mother and Hungarian father. My parents and my sisters are the only family I have in America. During my childhood, my summers were spent in my parents’ small towns. The rest of the year was spent in Chicago, or Mountain Grove, or Columbia, or Springfield.
This means I’m good at adapting. I’m able to feel a kinship and live comfortably in just about any town, city, community. It also means that I never quite feel at home. I simultaneously feel that I belong everywhere, and that I can’t ever build a sense of belonging anywhere. Contradictory, perhaps, but that’s what it means to be human.
In May, I moved to Washington, D.C. to work on my master’s project.
Besides Chicago, Washington is the closest I’ve ever felt to belonging somewhere in the States — appropriate, perhaps, since it’s the nation’s capital. It’s an international city. There are loads of residents who are similar to me, cultural mutts. When you go to a bar, you’re guaranteed to run into interesting people. Young people move to D.C. because they are passionate, because they are ambitious.
Now, the year is nearly over. I’ll graduate in less than a month. And I’m on the job hunt. I’m looking everywhere, all over the country. I’m looking back in Europe too. I must. Journalism is a tough industry, and there are only a few jobs in Washington. So maybe I’ll move away. Maybe I won’t. I’ve never done well with uncertainty, and it gives me nightmares.
Maybe that’s why I feel a sense of belonging in Washington. It’s a city of transience. People come, people leave. It’s dynamic, in flux. Quite like me.
I have no clue where I’ll be in a month. So for now, I’ll try to remember the little things that matter the most, like the view from my back porch in Capitol Hill on a late summer evening.
kasia redux 