Belonging

“I just want to belong…” Have you ever thought that? Okay, maybe that wasn’t the specific thought. You’re at work, in the break room, sitting along, eating your lunch and a group comes in laughing and chatting and you feel a tug, inside. Like you want to be a part of that. Or maybe, you know that group and you want to be as far away as possible.

Wanting to be a part of a group probably began when I was young, around 4th or 5th grade, when life around me, in my household was slowly falling apart. I didn’t know that I needed to be with others who’s parents were in a divorce, or that had a step-mom, or didn’t know how to relate to the mom they didn’t live with anymore. I wanted to connect and I didn’t know how. I felt like an outsider all of the time.

In high school, I joined the local junior police cadets, a part of the boy scouts, because I wanted to be a police officer. I felt a part of, sometimes, and awkward and out of place at other times.

I also joined the theater classes. Stagecraft they called it, the back stage part of theater – lights, sounds, sets and costumes. That was the first time in a long time I felt like I’d found a group I wanted to be a part of – the police thing was fun, but it required a lot of work, and I was in the public eye. In theater, I was in the dark, in the back, unseen and important at the same time. Also, most of the students in theater, grades nine through twelve, were misfits, like I felt. There was Joey, a punk rock kid, and Desire, the gypsy. Rick, a red-headed actor, and the techies. I loved the techies. I loved creating illusion out of nothing on stage. We recreated the hospital ward from One Flew Over A Cuckoo’s Nest, and the farmhouse in Oklahoma. I had useful skills in that world and I felt valued and important.

The best part of that brief moment in time was the belonging. I could be me. I didn’t have to pretend with those people, and they liked me as I was. After the ninth grade, it was another long stretch before I belonged to a small group of people again.