Writing in the Space Between Identities
It’s not coincidental that this current limb of my life—where I’m interrogating my relationship to medicine—coincides with the moment I’ve begun sharing my soul through writing. In hindsight, it makes perfect sense that one would herald the other. The kind of surrender required to trust the universe and write from that truth cannot coexist with a need to attend every loose end.
Imagine, we build lives from reasonable certainty. Yet can only burrow deeper into the roots of that very same life by complete and unreasonable uncertainty. Only by peering over the fences we’ve built, and venturing out toward the horizon do we learn what exactly it is we believe about the world. About ourselves.
We come to learn that the way we summon new understanding is by learning how to ask different questions, and committing to finding the answers.
That is how this book came to be. I first had to accept that my understanding of the world—of my identity—was rippling in real time. And consciously choose to walk toward the horizon beyond the fence, even though I did not know exactly what I would find. But I knew I couldn’t remain inside a dissolving illusion once I had seen the glitches.
I then had to accept the possibility that I would try and could “fail” at something completely untethered from who I had been known as. That, through the contents and implications of this work, everyone would know I had felt disillusioned enough with my former identity to seek new perspectives. And that I no longer believed in the entire framework of what I’d built.
I had to admit that I wanted something more, something deeper. And that I needed to quantify my understanding of life to regain my soul’s footing.
That’s quite vulnerable information about self to volunteer. Especially a self that had been defined almost exclusively by an ability to keep it all together. A practiced doctor of emergencies, choosing to break the collective covenant we all quietly uphold: that we believe—or at least will pretend to believe—in the lives we are living at any given moment. That we are reasonably certain that we are pointed in a satisfactory direction.
It reminded me of following GPS on foot and making a wrong turn but continuing forward just to avoid the social discomfort of reversing course in plain view. But what happens when you are the one who stops walking and names the misdirection? That was me. Quietly, inwardly, I admitted that I was lost. Not in any way visible to others. But deeply.
It’s interesting, society makes quite a bit of space—or rather distanced relegation—for the objectively unwell and celebrates the “well.” Wellness is treated as a purchasable trait we can acquire and put on at any moment. But that space in between—the chasm where most people actually live—is the one we’ve collectively agreed not to look directly at. The place where you are reasonably certain you are not identifiably unwell but know that you don’t at all feel “well.” You can find a psychiatrist to write a prescription so that you can continue to perform as one of the well people. But directly confronting the factors that brought you there in the first place is treated as too taboo to name. because it would pull too much on loose strings and unravel the entire magician’s sheet holding the whole operation together. And on a primal level we understand that our identity is codified by our behaviors, by the performance, so we just hold on tight for as long as we can tolerate it digging into our hands.
This is where I found myself, though I did not quite understand it in those terms at the time. I just knew that I had exhausted all the steam I had left being the way I was, where I was.
First I wrote to give form to the questions. I wrote because, for once, I was less afraid of failing than I was of never seeking truth. And of never knowing what lived inside me. I wrote after asking for permission only from myself. And the more I wrote, the more the tension between my identities began to soften—doctor, daughter, friend, sensitive being, curious explorer, perpetual “overthinker”. They began to coexist in ways that didn’t demand resolution, only honesty. Even now, still, as I write this, there has been no arrival point.
Writing in the space between identities has required a level of trust I hadn’t practiced before. Not just trust in my words, but trust in my life. Trust that stepping into ambiguity wouldn’t destroy me. That naming my discontent wouldn’t exile me. And that telling the truth to myself would not cause internal collapse. Instead, I am finding the opposite: that being willing to step into ambiguity has permitted a new, truer version of myself to emerge through this act of expression.
And she is. Slowly. Not fully arrived, but no longer hiding.
Now I see writing as a kind of spiritual agreement with life. A conversation between what I know and what I’m willing to feel. It doesn’t offer me certainty—but it does offer me presence. And in this liminal place between identities, presence feels like enough.
About:
Enia Oaks is a writer, physician, and introspective thinker exploring the space between identity, healing, and truth telling. Her work invites readers to reconsider the frameworks that shape their lives—and to reclaim the parts of themselves long held beneath performance. She is the author of From a Studio in Oakland, California: 108 Notes on Existence, a collection of essays and poems on becoming, clarity, and the sacredness of being human.
From a Studio in Oakland California is a collection of 108 soulful poems and essays on what it means to be human. To love, to lose, to hope, to begin again, to wonder, and to evolve.
Written during a season of personal reckoning and return, these pieces are meant to read like offerings left for the reader to pick up and find resonance where needed.
Part self-help, part poetic observation, this book is designed to meet readers at the crossroads of past and future–where grief, growth, healing, and expansion converge.
It is a work of shared wisdom, supportive permission, and soul-level reminders to the reader: of their wholeness, their capacity, and their right to take up space in this world.
This book is for anyone standing in the middle of their own becoming. More than anything, it is meant as a love letter to whoever may find their way through its pages.
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Category: On Writing
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