There’s a strange discomfort that comes with living in a permanent state of almost-but-not-quite belonging. It’s quieter than rejection, but heavier than indifference. And it’s something I experience almost every day that I leave my house, here in a country I was not born to.

A couple of weeks ago, I felt it sharply. In my ex-partner’s home, in a room filled with sunlight and family, our child, whom we raised here in Norway, marked a milestone in a tradition that I can never truly claim.

Confirmation (or konfirmasjon) is an important coming-of-age celebration for most Norwegian kids, and it’s acknowledged both in religious and secular ceremonies. In our case, Ell had spent twenty hours over ten weeks attending a Humanist confirmation course that he’d enjoyed much more than I expected. They discussed morality, ethics, sexuality, ideal society, kindness…all the things someone entering adulthood should consider. Ell has been pondering these topics since he could talk, so it was honestly delightful to see him engage with them in a group setting among his peers.

When the course coordinator put out a request for a speaker for the ceremony to represent the parents, my heart ached at my inability to volunteer. It’s a serious event, and I felt unable to give it the Norwegian skill and eloquence it deserved. Sadly, no one else volunteered either, and our ceremony simply skipped that part.

As with so many other moments in Ell’s life, I found myself muttering, “If this was in English, I would be killing it right now.”

After the ceremony, I stopped in at home to pick up the platters of food I’d spent two days preparing, and I drove up the hill to face my ex-family in my ex-partner’s home. The party was pleasant enough, if a little awkward at times. To my absolute relief and gratitude, my best friend and her husband and daughter were also there. My chosen family. It would have been a completely different (aka painful) day for me without them.

Because there were certainly others present who would have preferred it to be a purely Norwegian event. No one said anything to my face, of course, and I admit I’m oversensitive to my own linguistic and cultural shortcomings. But when I stood to give my toast, beginning with, “I’m sorry, but I’m going to do this in English,” I felt their embarrassed laughter in my bones.

My speech was well received, however, and I was able to get through it without the tears spilling over. I had hoped there would be a bookend speech from Ell’s dad in Norwegian to balance things out. But he loathes public speaking, and so his own toast amounted to “Thanks for coming, does anyone want coffee or cake?”

This made me feel like we weren’t doing it properly. But it wasn’t my house, and he’s not my partner anymore. And I had not been part of the planning.

I wasn’t excluded, and I wasn’t unwelcome. But I also wasn’t the host.

As with most things Norwegian, I watched from a half-step outside of center, a special guest but a guest all the same. And of course some of this is natural when you go from couple to co-parents. You have to share, and take turns, and compromise. But when country and culture come into play, it’s never really going to be an even playing field.

I am dancer only on the stage of these traditions, not choreographer. And though I can study how things are supposed to go, I’m always learning the steps while the performance is already underway.

After almost twenty years in this country, I have come to dread the inevitable question asked by every Norwegian when they come to learn that number: “Oh, so you must speak some Norwegian then?” And I do. I speak some Norwegian. Clumsily, shallowly, boringly and unfunnily.

Does anyone want to be clumsy, shallow, boring and unfunny when socializing, if they have the option not to? And I do have that option; unlike many who come here without English as their first language, I can choose to avoid the vulnerable stumbling phase of language learning. It’s a phase you have to go through to get better, but it’s something I’ve never had the stomach for. And I live with my choice.

Recently, at lunch in the office canteen, I remarked to my colleagues that I would probably be completely happy to stay in Norway for the rest of my life if it weren’t for the language barrier.

Someone replied, not without sarcasm, “You know there’s a cure for that, right?”

I hid my guilt and discomfort under an exaggeratedly obnoxious laugh and replied, “Yes! Everyone should just speak English for me!”

I hoped, with this obviously facetious response, to make it plain that I don’t actually believe this to be the solution. Of course I don’t; this is not an English-speaking country, and people should expect to speak their own language here in most circumstances.

But I wasn’t prepared for this person to raise their eyebrows at me and say, “We are.”

It was a bit of a slap, honestly. I work in an international company where the official language is English. But I know this particular person struggles with that, and from what I’ve gathered, they’d really prefer not to have to bother with English at all. The funny thing is, this person didn’t even realize they were helping to prove my point. Even after studying English since they were six or seven years old, and using it daily at work, and being surrounded by it in the media, they’re still uncomfortable when they just want to relax and be social. So what chance do I really have of ever being truly fluent and comfortable when I began learning in my late twenties?

Yes, I could try harder. And perhaps my reluctance is connected to the reason I came here in the first place. If I had moved to Norway for Norway’s sake, I might have embraced the language and the culture more willingly. But I moved here for a man, and I stayed for our kid, and I’m not sorry that kid has an outstanding English vocabulary.

But here’s the thing I’m coming to understand: that kid I stayed for? He’s rejected both his birth gender and the culture he grew up in. He speaks English at every opportunity and seems to find most things typically Norwegian “cringe.” However, after our last visit to Australia, he also discovered he’s not Australian either, and that moving there someday isn’t the answer to all his problems the way he used to believe.

And me? I never felt Australian either. So at least living here and being different makes a certain kind of sense.

So now we’re just two little aliens muddling along together.

I used to worry that I’d infected him with my internationalism, my inability to fully commit to either place or culture. But maybe what I actually gave him was permission to be authentically himself, even when that doesn’t fit neat categories. And he does embrace a certain contrarianism that I can’t help but smile at.

His confirmation gift from me was a bracelet I had engraved with “Category is…” so he knows he can decide a new one for any given moment. And a necklace with a compass charm, to remind him that he’s still finding his way.

I came to Norway for his dad, but I stayed for Ell, and I built a pretty great life for us here, really. And now I get to watch him choose the parts of me that Norway never quite knew what to do with. There’s something deeply satisfying about that irony. We’re both cultural outsiders, both by choice and circumstance, but we’re outsiders together.

And rather than looking at it as a failure to belong, I’d like to think of it as its own kind of home.

That might mean I’m always a guest in some form or another, even when I finally gain my citizenship. But it also means I’m raising someone who knows that fitting in isn’t the only way to belong. Sometimes the best thing you can do is create your own little pocket of belonging with the people who matter most.

And if that’s what he gets from my experiences, it will have been worth it.

Originally published on my Substack, Writing in Invisible Ink