I feel like an Alien who had to flee their home planet because it was exploding within itself like a supernova. In fact, it was exactly like that. A once stunning star …dying….

On my home planet, I was just living life when I became aware of the darkness creeping across the small area I existed in.

Death was all around me, and I had little Aliens to think about. The air had become so heavy that I could no longer breathe, and the environment was stifling us so much that I could not grow. I felt like a goldfish in a bowl, just round and round.

Goldfish are indeterminate growers like most fish, meaning they continue to grow throughout their lives if the conditions are right. If you keep them in a small tank, they stay small. But put the same fish in a large clean tank that’s well maintained with regular water changes and proper filtration, and you could have a king-size goldfish on your hands—strong and beautiful.
With that comparison in mind, I would say that I was living in a plastic tank, on the shelf of some kid who begged for a goldfish, got it, and then was bored after a few weeks. Now, I was just on the shelf, waiting either to die or for someone to change my water, just so I can catch a breath.

I was suffocating in my own filth. So, I had to leave. Didn’t I?

Well, at least try. I mean, others had tried to leave my home planet many times. Most crashed and burned very quickly and either were gone forever or brought back to us, broken and battered and never the same.
So I decided to try. But I also wanted to take others with me. But I could not. For so many reasons, just my own little Aliens. But I promised I would return for my people once I made it. It seemed so silly that I thought I could do that now, but it was my truth at the time.
And so I set out in search of a new host planet. And let me tell you, even though I found a place to rest, I had brought along some rather nasty parasites that made it hard for me to put down roots and grow crops and all the other things I needed.

But we survived the trip and tried to make home on the new planet. And here we are today.
I should be happy…right? I am one of the lucky ones that got out…right?

So here I am, walking around trying to communicate with people in a language that most don’t understand, trying to adapt to cultures that feel insane to me, and trying to understand the rules and regulations of the environment around me.

This new planet is called “middle class,” apparently. Not my destination, but is where I have landed.

I have been in this new world for a long time, but it still does not feel like home and never will. It’s cold most of the time, and it’s quite a hostile environment.

Most people speak a different language to me (obviously), but I think I have picked up enough to get by. However, the language barrier stops me from making friends or having any kind of relationship.
The sun doesn’t hit quite right here. The grass is not electric green, and the sounds are muted.

Don’t get me wrong—the air quality is good. In fact, I can’t deny that since being in this new world, I eat and breathe better than ever before. It’s not that I am not grateful to be here—I am. But…. it’s not my world.

I have really tried. Honestly, the inhabitants of this planet don’t get me. And I don’t get them. There is no connection. They don’t get my jokes. Not really. And I really like laughing. And I don’t here. Not like I used to. That belly laughs where it gets so bad you have to move out of the room, or you will be sick, pain in your chest, and then when it’s done, you look at the person, and it starts all over again. Wow, I miss that.

The rules here make little sense to me. The inhabitants have a code of conduct that I neither understand nor want to understand, and I refuse to adapt. So I stand out even more when I say that where I come from, we would not do things like that. Where I come from, we don’t think like that. And then they get fed up with hearing about where I come from.

Like any Alien, I want to go home.

But I can’t because I can’t exist there anymore.
I often call out, like a Batman signal, to my home plant and always get a reply. I secretly cry sometimes when I have this communication. It’s both sad and happy tears. Being able to just talk, not having to remember the correct words or context for things, just having a natural conversation, is overrated.

I miss the food, the smell, and the vibe. I miss slow dancing to reggae in the kitchen at 3 a.m. I miss the grass under my feet, the heat on my skin, and actually feeling alive.
But I can’t go back. Just because I speak the language doesn’t mean I can go back to that way of living. The hustle. The grit and the grime. The tension and the worry of who…when….someone….

So, like an Alien, I just exist in a middle space that I have had to carve out and try to make liveable while feeling isolated much of the time.

This may sound extreme, but I assure you of this… It’s exactly how I feel most days.

I come from a place where the rules are easy, and the expectations are clear. I had a role, and I served my role well. I don’t have that here, and I never will. Every day is a struggle just to fit in.
My only hope is that a couple of the people I live with from my home planet join me. They see that I made it, and they say they want to. But it’s easier said than done. I get that. They say it sounds boring here. I tell them they are right.

They say that they think they can grow big where they are. I remind them of the goldfish and ask them how many big goldfish they see swimming around them. And then they go quiet. We go quiet.

One asked me to come back. Said fly back, because you can fly between both and have the best of both worlds. But we both know that’s not true.  

Or I may need to find a new host planet where the sun is a little warmer, the air is fresher, and the language is not such a big problem.

But until then, like many others, I have moved to two worlds but have lived in neither.

And I will just keep sending out my Batman signal in the hope that someone responds.