Going Back to a Strange, Familiar Place

Once in a while, you walk into a place and experience an odd sensation. What is this feeling?

You might be tempted to call it déjà vu, but that’s not quite right. With déjà vu, (“already seen”) you have the sensation of revisiting somewhere you haven’t actually been, at least not in this world or life.

But this feeling is different, because you have been here—in this life, in this same earthly realm. It’s just that something was different back then: you were. Now, even if the physical environment is exactly the same, you being different means that your experience of it has changed.

Most likely, you catch this feeling in a very ordinary place. Not a special place, a secret place, or fancy place at all. Maybe it’s a place where people come and go, and life passes in all its usual forms.

For me, this place was an airline lounge I recently visited. As soon as I walked in, I had that weird feeling. What’s so strange about this? I wondered. Oh. That’s right. Six years ago, I was here during a very difficult time in my life.

Back then, I was afraid and terribly anxious. But I couldn’t talk about it! I kept it to myself.

In fact, I had to do other kinds of talking: that day I was on my way to give a public talk. I had to do my best to serve the audience, to focus less on myself and more on what I could offer them. Which was fine! That’s how it works! But I was also struggling.

And that, in a nutshell, represents the two versions of me that I continuously juggled.

• I want to make people happy even though I am not happy myself.
• Something is blocking me from being true to myself. (I’m letting it block me, of course. I knew that even then; I just didn’t know how to fix it.)
• Eventually this will all be okay and so will I. But I don’t know when or how.

So now, all these years later, I was back. The lounge had been renovated—and not to put too clichéd a point on it, but so had I. Read More