This was mostly written in 2015 while living in Asheville, North Carolina a few weeks before leaving for an unknown length of time.
Yesterday while sitting at Odd’s Café, Luna brought me a piece of banana bread. That’s not her real name. She reminds me of the Harry Potter character, so the story I tell myself is that her name is Luna.
I didn’t ask for the treat, didn’t pay for it. I was just sitting at Odd’s working on something and Luna brought me a piece of sweet bread. Guess that means I’m a regular, a valued customer. Little does Luna know I’m about to disappear.
Disappearing is what I do, and I’m pretty good at it. Maybe I don’t like to let myself get too close to people or situations so when things start to become comfortable, too likely that I might let down my guard, I decide it’s time to go.
Or maybe that’s not it. Maybe I just have no patience. Perhaps I never allow myself the time it requires to become “a regular”. I convince myself I’m bored and decide to move, never giving myself the chance to really get to know my surroundings. But that might not be it either. Like almost everyone else, I probably have no idea why I act the way I do.
Disappearing all the time is lonely. I will miss Luna, and the tall, thin woman I assume is the owner but for whom I have not yet made up a name. I will miss them, and yet I don’t even know them. I will miss the familiarity of being in their presence. I will miss them knowing what I want when I walk in the door. I will miss feeling like I’m in a place I belong.
The feeling that I am where I belong has been rare in my life. When I wasn’t feeling like an imposter (all too often), I felt I was where I belonged while working for Outward Bound. I usually feel like I’m where I belong when I’m with Mary, but not always. Not because of her, but because of me.
What is that feeling of not belonging, of feeling out of place, not in sync with time and space? Is it insecurity or does it speak to something deeper?
I continue to wander the earth. Perhaps part of that is some deep set belief that somewhere out there exists a place where I will feel like I fully belong. Yet, I also believe that all I need to belong lies not outside me but within. To belong, I need to become comfortable with the skin I am in.
I think I’m rambling now, searching for a conclusion that is unlikely to reveal itself. Today is probably not the day I will become comfortable with myself. Today is not the day I will feel like I belong. Except maybe if I go to the coffee shop, and they know what I want as soon as I walk in the door.
I fortuitously stumbled on your page and landed right smack dab in the middle of your Belong blog and the thoughts you share here echo deep in my mind/soul. My path has been different but felt the same in so many ways. I stay, Or at least for the last 25 years I have stayed. In that time, I have had fleeting periods of belonging but they’ve never stuck.
I have found my belonging has been most consistent in my own sense of connection to this planet and to serve the greater good. That doesn’t necessarily come from a noble source but from my desire to belong to something healthier more promising more sustainable than me. I have never been a belonger to a set group of people but instead just felt a belonging to life. Sometimes that feels like enough – and than other times, particularly in years of late, is just lonely. I can always go to the woods and sit and when I do any hint of loneliness disappears. It will sustain me for a while.
Now I am about to embark on nomadic life without clear plans and more profoundly without my sense of purpose except to be with more of this planet, to know more of it more intimately, to understand more deeply what I belong most to. At times when I imagine myself alone out there I feel sad about not having someone to share it with but at other times I know there will be others, like “Luna” who I will feel an immediate sense of familiarity to because that happens for me often; but knowing I’ll never have shared experiences with her beyond a moment invokes a sense of sadness. I know we are “supposed” to be pack animals and I will forever be puzzled by both my lack of a pack yet my feeling of belonging to all. Nevertheless the lonely part of it all is haunting.
*Sorry for the long comment – I’m deep in a transition process right now and the topic of belonging has been swirling madly in my mind lately. And, btw, this is Julie (OA).