Belonging

Both sides of the story

Photo by Geoffroy Hauwen on Unsplash

“Mom, sometimes I think you’re part of the wrong family.”

My oldest and I were out on a walk, thinking out loud about life, like we’ve done since he was a child. We’d walk our u-shaped block and he’d spend the whole time telling me about Minecraft. As he’s grown up our conversations have too. Naturally evolving into sharing more complex thoughts and ideas with each another- his 18 year old perspective, my 51 year old one- our words invite each other into our worlds.

He is always honest with me, and while this honest comment stung, it also rang true. I am the fish out of water in our family. In the place where I want to belong, where I should naturally belong…I know I’m the outlier. I’m not like the others. They are not like me.

I was the outlier in my own childhood family too: emotional, sensitive. My heart on my sleeve. Dreamy, full of grand wishes and big ideas. Full of possibility. My parents didn’t have my innocent hopeful perspective, and the reasons why were too big for me to understand when I was little.

I’ve always wanted so much to belong. The thing I hoped most for in junior high was that I would wear the right outfit to school and it would make people recognize how wonderful I was and then I’d be safely ensconced in the cool clique never to be ejected. I frequently dreamed about wearing the perfect thing to school, then I’d wake up, my heart soaring! Then I’d remember it was a dream and my heart would plummet to the floor.

A sense of belonging hasn’t been a big part of my life. The girl I played with when I was 5 bit me and tried to shove me out in traffic, my very best kindergarten friend lost interest in two blocks away me when another girl our age moved in right next door to her. I didn’t understand what happened, I just knew I wasn’t the one on the backyard jungle gym anymore. From a very young age, I thought it was me.

I was why I didn’t belong. Something was wrong with me.

As I got older, it seemed like that stayed true. I watched friendships form, watched people who seemed devoted to one another. I couldn’t understand what they did to get to be like that. I could feel my at arms length level, and I felt the closed door. I was not inside on the couch laughing, eating cookies, sharing secrets that got kept, I was the one outside peering in.

My location never did me any favors. We moved when I was in the middle of fourth grade and lived out in the county, which is fine unless your mom also hates driving. My parents paid $500 a year for me to go to public school in the city because the county schools were so bad, so I lived out in the county while most people lived in town. And in a small southern town people bond from the get go, mid 4th grade felt too late.

Belonging is such a mystery to me! I know what it feels like, and I know I want it, but I think a reason it stays mysterious is because of me. It’s not because of me being unlikable, or shitty, or mean, or un-fun. It’s because I keep my own self at arms length. I am the one who doesn’t understand how to knock on the door and come in off of the porch instead of peering in. That’s the other side.

One side is feeling left out. The other is cultivating left out. Do you see?

I protect myself fiercely. I do not want to get hurt. I have also been in many relationships where my lack of boundaries meant I suffered, but because I was choosing that suffering it felt reasonable somehow. Like I’ll hurt myself before you can hurt me and somehow that felt like belonging. Wanting to belong in a healthy way felt too vulnerable, like I was asking too much. To belong, to create a sense of connection, people need to know things about me, and that feels risky. There are a lot of factors in this that I am currently exploring. Things like self worth and self respect…dignity. Also that my feeling and thoughts are valid. This is a tangle-y place.

It’s the double edged sword- the thing you want so much but don’t allow yourself to have: I am the jailer and I’m the one with the key. I want to belong, but I am also the one keeping myself from it. Kind of like wanting to be sober but then drinking again anyway.

I think this fear of belonging is a big giant reason I haven’t wanted to go to any meetings- AA ones, Ben’s Friends ones, Small Bow ones. Feeling like I didn’t know how to belong, and that there was a secret I hadn’t figured out that would let me feel like I did. I thought other people had the secret, and it was being kept from me. That I would show up and tell my story and people would laugh and make fun of me and tell me I didn’t know what I was talking about.

So I’ve stayed on my sober island, recovering mostly alone.

More soon,

Amy