A Love Letter to the Girl Caught Between Worlds
I grew up in Gary, Indiana, where my world was split down the middle. On one side was my neighborhood — a tight-knit, predominately Black community where kids roamed freely, riding bikes, playing double dutch, and making the sidewalk their stage for hopscotch tournaments. On the other side was my Catholic school, all the way across town, where my plaid uniform set me apart long before I even opened my mouth. My two worlds rarely intersected, and if they did, it was with friction, not ease.
At home, I was the girl who talked “proper,” the one who didn’t know the latest slang, the one whose grandmother kept a firm grip on my freedom. I couldn’t leave the front yard, let alone take off on an adventure with the kids who had the whole block as their playground. In hindsight, I know she was protecting me. Gary wasn’t an easy place to grow up. But back then, all I knew was that when the gunshots rang out, we instinctively dropped the ropes mid-jump, waited for the silence, then picked up right where we left off. That was just life.
At school, life was different. We never talked about what happened after we left those brick walls. Maybe some of my classmates had similar experiences, but we left all of that at home. We showed up, did our work, got good grades, and played our roles. I tried to bridge the gap sometimes, to tell my classmates that we weren’t as different as they thought. But my experiences were often met with blank stares or quick dismissals. Over time, I learned not to share. And maybe that’s when it started — the feeling that I didn’t quite belong anywhere.
Being called weird enough times does something to you. It settles in, takes up space, becomes a part of how you move in the world.
By junior year, my mom and I moved one town over, and for the first time, I stepped into a public school. I was excited — my best friend was already there, and I thought this was my chance to start fresh. But as the new girl, I was quickly reminded that I was different. The way I spoke, the way I carried myself, even the way I tried to laugh through my awkwardness — it all set me apart. So I did what I had always done: I smiled, joked, and made myself small enough to fit in.
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At 46, I see the thread now. The way those childhood lessons followed me into adulthood, into my friendships, into my relationships. Not quite fitting, not quite enough. Wanting to be seen, but making myself digestible first. Changing the tone of my voice, softening my edges, molding myself into the shape of someone else’s expectations. Because if they knew the real me — if they knew both the Gary girl and the Catholic school girl — would they stay?
Rejection is a bitch.
But what I know now is that it isn’t about choosing one identity over the other. I was never meant to be split into two halves, forced to pick a side. I am both. I am all of it. The girl who learned discipline in a school that never quite embraced her. The girl who found joy in the same streets her grandmother feared. The woman who has spent years untangling what it means to belong — not to a place, not to a person, but to herself.
And if I could go back, I’d tell that little girl standing on the front porch, uniform pressed, ropes swinging in the air, that she was never the problem. That her voice, the one they called “too proper” or “too much,” would one day be the thing that made her powerful. That she was always enough, just as she was.
And maybe, just maybe, I’d finally believe it too.
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