When the Dream Isn’t Built for You

On belonging, bias, and building anyway

Some experiences aren’t loud enough to be named right away.
They show up as friction. As silence.
As the feeling of moving through rooms that were never designed with you in mind.

There’s a kind of quiet that follows you when you live inside systems not built for you.
It’s subtle, but heavy, like walking through glass walls.
You can see everything clearly, yet what others reach with ease always feels just out of grasp.

People call it opportunity.
I’ve learned it’s also architecture.
Who gets seen. Who gets filtered. Who gets invited in.

For a long time, I took rejection personally.
Another unanswered email. Another door closed politely.
Only later did I recognize the pattern beneath it,
the quiet sorting of who is read as capable
and who is asked, again and again, to prove they belong.

Still, I build.
Because waiting for permission is another way of disappearing.

Living in Switzerland has taught me many things.
How to slow down.
How to find peace in solitude.
How safety is built, and what it costs.

It is beautiful here.
But beauty does not cancel truth.

There are moments I wonder what it would feel like
to live somewhere that mirrors me back,
where my presence is not quietly questioned
before I ever speak.

Until then, I make my own mirrors.
I write.
I create.
I speak.

Because even when the dream was not built for you,
you can still carve your reflection into its walls.

And maybe belonging isn’t about fitting in at all.
Maybe it’s about building something honest enough
that others recognize themselves inside it too.