What it Means to “Come Home” When You’re Twice Exceptional

It’s homecoming week at my son’s school. A time of joy and celebration – a reason to come together and feel good about school spirit and pride. Its original intent is to welcome home alumni – to celebrate where they’ve gone and how far they’ve come in their studies and life pursuits. We welcome them home with innocence and joy, parties and tailgates. 

There’s another homecoming this week as I sit down to write this blog. Today the remaining Israeli hostages are returning home. It’s a momentous time – a time of gladness for those who can come home and great sorrow for those we’ve lost.  A time of relief and of trepidation. It’s a time to sigh and finally breathe, and also, to hold our breath. After all, what will home look like in the coming days, weeks, generations?

Two completely different homecomings that made me think about the word “home,” and about the complexity of life, and of living as a twice exceptional person.

Home is a place you are proud to call yours. It’s a place that represents you, who you are, what you care about, what you fight for, and how you present yourself to the world. It’s a cocoon that holds you and allows you to be your authentic self.

For twice exceptional people, sometimes they must pretend – they mask to indicate to others that they fit in. There is a longing to have a place they truly can call home. How can one small word – home – mean so many different things? How can one small word carry and cushion us and do we recognize it when we have it? 

Do we know how important it is – the people in our lives whom we need, the places and things that make us feel whole? Do we choose to spend our time searching for or complaining about what we have or don’t have, to the detriment of time – fleeting time – going by in a cloud of glass half emptiness? Sand seeps through the hourglass whether we want it to or not.

The juxtaposition of a high school homecoming and the homecoming of beloved, tortured hostages is ridiculous, almost obscene. Except that to me it represents two ends of a spectrum with innocent, gleeful, childhood fun on one end and the importance to recognize how blessed we are to have freedom and choice on the other. It’s a reminder of how contextual our suffering or celebrating is – based on where we are, who we are, and who is around us.

Sometimes 2e people get bogged down in what they don’t have, what they wish for, how others see or treat them. It’s real – this gaslighting, misunderstanding, judgment, and inaccurate assumptions. But we have freedom, we have a choice, and we have air we can breathe. Don’t shrink yourself. Don’t let others’ inaccurate viewpoints cause you to become small or to cave in on yourself. I know you know what I mean. Those times you want to be invisible, you want to disappear, you don’t want to be seen.

Gifted and distractible people above all, have so much emotional depth. Swim in that depth with your head above water – seeing everything that you see, feeling gratitude for what you have, pride in what you learn and know, and become your own life preserver – telling yourself beautiful positive messages that will carry you down this winding, turbulent, and at times, calm river of life. Remember each day is new and you can make your own home. Choose who you want in your world. Choose how you want to talk to yourself. Choose how you want to talk to others. Choose how you want to respond – internally and externally – to what others say to you. You have a choice. You have freedom. You are home.