Coming into myself and out to the world

“The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.” [Victor Hugo]

Last week I was having a conversation with a person to whom I’ve grown close in some weird ways and hadn’t seen since before my amazing trip this summer, so we were catching up and he was asking me how I’m doing. And to explain the extent to which I felt well — healed, liberated, empowered — after my wonderful summer experiences, I said, “Basically, I came into myself and out to the world, and found an accepting, loving, welcoming, warm response from the people around me”. 

Now I’m realizing how that combination of ingredients was so important and good for me this summer: thanks to specific, nurturing or encouraging circumstances and persons, I was finally able to come fully into myself, as a sort of culmination of year-long processes, and found the courage to come out to the world as wholly myself; but this wasn’t sufficient, or the only aspect of my well-being: the fact of feeling accepted and welcomed and loved by those around me, just as I am, just as I was manifesting myself to them — that’s what truly gave me the ultimate joy. 

And that’s what I feel I’m lacking here now. 

I’m not saying I’m not loved or accepted here. I do have some very close, good friends who love me and on whom I can count here, too. But there’s something of the environment here that seems to lack the warmth or open-arms-welcome I had felt over the summer. And while I’m probably in one of the best places in the world to express my non-binary identity fully, I somehow feel that many parts of me (of how I am or how I behave) are unacceptable or unwelcome or considered “inappropriate” here — or maybe most people are just less interested in close, warm connections here as their goals lie more in the direction of professional/financial success? In which case, I would be a misfit here anyway…