"I tricked myself sometimes just to play the part"
Thoughts on belonging, self-abandonment, & having one foot in and one foot out
One Saturday in April 2022, I was mystified by a sudden swirl of panic.
I felt like I’d been walking for a long time with my head down, staring at my feet, until I looked up to find myself face-to-face with a brick wall. I felt trapped in my workplace, which doubled as my community and had developed a habit of trying to triple as my life’s purpose. I had drunk deeply of this place, pursuing promises of belonging and significance. And it had worked: I’d received belonging and attained significance, of a kind.
But I had also lost the ability to imagine anything different for myself and my life. I was stuck.
A few months before, I sat in the office of a beloved professor-turned-mentor. In his mid-eighties and perpetually sporting khaki pants and cozy sweaters, he begins our time together by lighting a candle, sitting in his rocking chair, and sharing silence. He leaves it to me to break the silence when I’m ready to speak. It always feels nearly impossible to do so, the stillness surrounding him so complete, like a thick, heavy blanket.
This time, I broke the silence by asking him—a man who had worked at the same university for 45 years—how he had managed to stay in that community for so long. At first, he nodded his head slowly and let out a quiet, guttural “Mmmhmm. Mmmhmm.”
I expected him to appeal to the underestimated value of patience and forbearance and what a beautiful thing it is to belong with your heart and soul to one place and people. After all, that’s what I’d heard from elder Christian figures all my life.
Instead he replied in his signature Mississippi drawl: “Now Drew, in every community I’ve been part of, I have had one foot in and one foot squarely out.”
One foot in and one foot squarely out. His words reverberated in my head as the panic rose in my chest, spreading to my shaking jaw and filling my eyes with tears. I had no idea why I was crying, why these emotions were flooding my body so forcefully with such little notice. I hadn’t felt stuck until this moment, but now it was impossible to ignore.
Call it quantum entanglement, but not 48 hours later, relationships at work would suddenly unravel, leading to the month-long, slow-motion collapse of my workplace and my community.
As my co-workers and I watched that collapse take place, it became evident that “one foot in and one foot squarely out” was no longer an option. Then, one day in late May, Kelsey came home from therapy and shared with me the words of her own beloved mentor: “Sounds like Drew has two choices: either abandon his workplace or abandon himself.”
By the middle of June, I had made my decision: both feet squarely out.
That decision began for me a new and challenging season of its own that’s not over yet. I’ve been picking up fragments of memories and turning them over in new light. There have been many moments over the past few years when I stuffed down inconvenient feelings, intuitions, and questions because they threatened my sense of belonging. In each of these instances, even if just for an instant, I abandoned myself.
Embedded in these memories is always a bodily posture—for example, sitting silent and motionless when implicated in an hours-long discussion, suppressing the impulse to shout when angry, or trying desperately not to show an intense experience of fear when initiating a confrontation.
We’ve all been in situations like that, and it’s often not just important but crucial to remain in control of one’s physical responses in the moment. The issue arises when we don’t return to those feelings later and give them safe expression—by doing a few push-ups to relieve some anger, or letting out that shout once we’re alone in the car, or going for a quick run to remind our bodies we’re not always trapped in an endless conversation.
I feel like a beginner as I learn how to belong both to myself and to those around me. So much of it boils down to becoming comfortable with expressing my needs in the moment, developing awareness of how I actually feel in a given situation rather than how I’ve internalized that I ought to feel, and knowing that it’s okay to spot the exits—even if I feel safe.
I’m learning that having one foot in and one foot squarely out does not have to equate to disloyalty or fickleness. In fact, a healthy dose of distance and skepticism, when channeled gently and generously, might just be an invaluable asset to those around you.
The song I’m sharing today expertly uses few words to convey that creeping awareness that, somewhere along the way, you left yourself behind. Jill Andrews expresses this bitter realization with lines like “I think I sold my heart out and now I feel the fallout” and “I tricked myself sometimes just to play the part.”
This song comes from an album full of gems called Thirties. I’ve bonded deeply with this record, in no small part because it wrestles with the issue of recovering one’s identity in the wake of relational disillusionment, and it does so from a variety of angles that each bring something valuable to the table. If you find yourself in a season like that, I strongly encourage you to give the whole album a listen from beginning to end. Favorites of mine, aside from “Sold My Heart,” are “Forces,” “Call It Even,” and “The Way to Go.”
If I could depend on you
Where would we be now?
Would we have fallen through
Or made it out somehow?
I thought I’d catch myself
On the way down
I think I sold my heart out
And now I feel the fallout
I tell myself the greatest lies
The greatest lies
I think I sold my heart out
This time
If I had known our sky
Was full of falling stars
Would I have ever looked up
Or stayed in the dark?
I tricked myself sometimes
Just to play the part
You're a gift, Drew. Thank you for the courage to value and express yourself.
Drew, these are the things we need to hear. You most definitely have an important voice.