3. on belonging
I can’t remember who said it but I was once told that “our blocks are our greatest gifts.” It was one of those things that when I heard it I could tell it would be meaningful but I didn’t quite grasp its meaning yet. I could recognize its power but I couldn’t feel it. So I held onto it and I kept coming back to it, never letting it escape the back of my mind even though I didn’t know the purpose it had to be front of mind.
And then one day, months after I had first heard it, it clicked.
Sometimes the things that feel like the biggest blocks, standing in our way of achieving the things we think we want, are our greatest gifts.
Ever since I can remember I’ve wanted to belong. But I never did. I never have. And I never will. I could wish upon a thousand stars to find a place where I belong, surrounded by people I belong with and that wish would never be granted in this lifetime. I saw how beautiful of a gift it was to be given but only after I realized I’m not here to belong.
I spent most of my childhood nursing my broken heart because of my inability, yet dying desire to belong - to fit in, to find my group, my tribe, my ride-or-die friends, my oasis of gathered humans. I tried so hard in elementary + middle school to have a long term best friend, one that would last longer than a 90-minute class or a single season of weather. All I wanted, all I’ve ever wanted, was someone who could sit by my side and figure out life with me. Because I saw the depths life had to offer from a very early age and it confused the shit out of me. And it caused me great anxiety which led to depression - all because I knew I would never fully make sense of life from my single point of view. But when you’re 10 not that many people want to talk about deep shit.
I looked around and couldn’t understand the way people treated one another, I couldn’t understand why we were all so desperate to give value to material things like - winning first place or having the newest abercrombie ripped jeans - and yet that was all I saw. The coolest people I knew, ruining themselves just to fit in to society’s standards of “cool” which really just meant “hot + rich.” I could never mold myself the way everyone else could. I saw bullshit and I called bullshit. But I had no one to tell bullshit to.
This need to speak up and speak out was at conflict with my desire to belong. I wanted to belong so badly, but I wasn’t willing to give up what I knew to be true in order to do that. So I kept getting burned by friends. I was ignored, rejected, not invited, uninvited, made fun of, I’d even go as far as to say - humiliated by people I thought I was close with. I spent so many nights crying in bed because I didn’t understand why the people I thought loved me would treat me like trash. I didn’t understand why the people I loved, didn’t want to love me back.
But the thing is - and this always pissed off the friends that tried to leave me in the dust - I always made more friends. I was dying for discourse as soon as I learned the english language. I’d chat up anyone put into my path. People who got assigned to sit next to me in class, opponents on the soccer field, the lunch ladies, my fellow youth groupers, the other girl who also had to do community service on Sundays, whoever! It didn’t matter to me who they were I was just looking for answers to life from anyone who knew how to talk. I was a walking web of connections with no one to call on a Friday night because all my friends were having a sleepover I wasn’t invited to. And the worst part? They’d call me “crazy” for getting upset that I wasn’t invited. As if my big heart was a mistake.
As I got older, it was the same thing just different people, in different ways. I’d watch groups of girls form close friendships and wonder why I never had a circle to call my own. I was fixated on it. It was as if the rest of my life couldn’t be established until I had a solid circle of females to figure out life with. And the truth is, even at 30 years old I don’t have it. And I never will have it. I know that now. And I’m okay with that because I realized this “block” of not belonging to any one set of people is actually my greatest gift. Belonging would’ve slowed me down, it would’ve held me back. While everyone else was spending years only knowing the same subset of people, I was busy getting to know everyyyyoneeeeeee. I could never devote time to one friend group because truthfully, and lovingly, I am too invested in the whole of society to ever limit myself to one set of people.
I have known so many beautiful people in my life. I have gotten life advice from homeless women in Baltimore while serving them a warm meal under shelter. And I’ll never forget that if I ever find myself without soap, it’s better to wash your hands with just water, than not at all. The friction of washing helps get off some of the germs.
I have been interested in hundreds of beautiful lives. I have listened to hundreds of beautiful stories. I have absored hundreds of beautiful minds. I have consumed so many beautiful things and in turn I have become all of these things.
I’m a million different people cascading into one mind and draped in a human body - and it’s all thanks to my inability to belong with any one group.
But for so long, I didn’t see the beauty in it. I thought something was wrong with me. I couldn’t undersand how eventually everyone always left me out. But it’s because I never stayed long enough to build roots with them. I thought I was a tree but I’m not. I’m a bee traveling from flower to flower, pollinating growth as I learn about the world.