Belonging
Sometimes I sit on my front porch listening to kids play, cicadas and lawn mowers whirring in the background - and I can’t believe my kids get to grow up here. With friends across the street, next door, and down the block, teachers who live in the neighborhood. Where you know the name of everyone on your block, and the names of their dogs, and there is always someone to grab your mail. There’s a block party every summer where the fire truck comes to spray the kids, and bonfires that burn past midnight. THIS is how they will remember home, and I’m so grateful for that, but also a little jealous.
We moved a lot when I was a kid, so I never really felt like I belonged. I was always the new girl, constantly trying to make friends and be funny and seem worth taking a chance on. They say part of our enneagram identity develops from childhood wounds, so it’s no surprise I’m a two. I desperately want to be needed and loved. There’s some relief in understanding myself, but it doesn’t make navigating the reality less painful.
Anytime I meet someone new, especially in groups, I can immediately tell you all the ways we are different. All the ways I don’t fit in. All the reasons they probably won’t include me. The elementary school playground is as anxiety-inducing for 40-yr-old me as it was for fourth-grade me. The whole FIND YOUR TRIBE movement usually makes me feel more sad than empowered, because my life doesn’t include a handful of women with deep roots and shared memories, faithfully showing up for dinner every Sunday.
But I’m consistently reminded that not everyone’s community looks the same. There isn’t a formula for good relationships, and I realize how lucky I am to even have one person who would show up for me. And I have more than a few incredible women who would. Even if they don’t necessarily feel like mine, and even if I’m not sure I’d ever be brave enough to ask them. Maybe none of us truly feels like any community is specifically OURS -- because it belongs to all of us. That community is a co-op is what makes it beautiful.
May we all be able to see more clearly the benefit that only we can bring.