Through the Window: What It Feels Like to Be an Outsider

Standing at a window, looking into a house that’s already full of warmth, laughter, and life — but knowing I’m outside in the cold ❄️, knocking quietly, hoping someone notices.

As a young immigrant ✈️, there’s this constant hunger, a fire inside pushing me to achieve something, anything, because I carry not just my dreams ✨ but the silent weight of everyone back home who hopes I make it. Every small opportunity feels sacred. Every mistake feels catastrophic. I move through the city alert, grateful, clumsy, and invisible at the same time.

Then I meet people who were born into that house, who have always lived inside it. Some of them seem almost careless with the things I fight for: the education 🎓, the safety 🛡️, the simple right to dream big without wondering if I belong. They shrug off chances I would die for. They get bored with possibilities I treat like miracles.

Culturally, it’s a slow-burning shock — realizing that what I once viewed as treasures are seen here as everyday tools. Psychologically, it cuts both ways: there’s resentment, yes, but also deep motivation. I work harder because I have to. I dream bigger because I must. I learn to hold pride and loneliness together in my chest like two hands gripping the same rope.

I don’t just want success. I want to deserve the space I’ve carved for myself. And part of me aches because I know — no matter how much I achieve — a small part of me will always be that young guy outside the window, remembering what it was like to knock.