Do you know what it means to belong?

Really, truly belong?

When I left my job the facility last February, I didn’t realize the acute feeling of loss that would seep in when I left that community. I entered Mayfair with no sense of what I was walking into, the hands I would hold, the people I would have to say goodbyes to, the things I would see. Those coworkers became my second family, bonded through trauma and shared experience. It wasn’t until this past November that I really realized how much I lost (and gained) when I left. I thought by leaving I was regaining my purpose in motherhood, by going back to my centre, the things that made me me. Taking back what the pandemic had stripped away from me. However, over the few months that followed, it became painfully obvious that I didn’t know what my centre was any longer.

My pain, hurt, and anger was becoming difficult to tuck away, coming to the surface in untimely and surprising ways. Triggered by memories, or difficult conversations, I couldn’t share my pain with my family, I couldn’t really articulate the feelings that were coming out of nowhere, creating regret in my decision to leave. Even last month, when I thought about visiting my “ladies” for Christmas, I got a lump in my throat and a sense of panic set in. Did I abandon them?

Alongside these experiences, in April 2023, I started working at a school, where Belonging is part of their long term strategic plan. There is a committee wholly dedicated to it, the “belonging champions”; there are Monday morning full staff meetings, house activities and teamwork events. All support staff are encouraged to participate in professional development, not solely teachers. Not only was this my new workplace, but also the place I went to school from ages 9-18. It was home. It is home. It’s awkward and strange and also wonderful to be in the space of my early development. It’s got me thinking about belonging, what it really means. Most certainly in the face of the tragedy that continues to unfold in Gaza, where belonging seems to be at the core of the dilemma. What does it mean to belong?

When we are born, we are born into belonging. I belong to my parents, they belong to me. We make claims on each other because of blood, but then somewhere along the way, our ‘otherness’ becomes a problem to belonging to a family, so we seek out belonging in other ways. As teens, Friendships become our belonging. Then later on, you develop political or national belonging, but that can also be conflicting, creating fissures in your sense of self. For some folks, they have religious or spiritual belonging, you participate in community weekly and can agree on a modicum of beliefs.

But what about the bigger picture to belonging? When it becomes less about fitting in and more about connection (See Brené Brown’s Atlas of the Heart)? As I go about the mundane tasks of being human, groceries, getting gas, shoveling sidewalks, taking walks, passing strangers on the street or in your place of work, there seems to be a wall that is growing taller with each passing day, I call this the wall of convenience. Insta-carts and self-checkouts, drive-thru coffee shops and click and collect. Contactless existence that makes going into public feel like an episode of The Last of Us. Tap the app, get out fast, heaven forbid you count your coins at the till and hold up the person behind you. Do you ever find if you ask a stranger how they are before you ask anything of them, they might often be surprised at your curiosity? Surprised by your kindness? By your benefit of the doubt that they are deserving of being acknowledged? We don’t have enough opportunities to really connect with other humans anymore. Perhaps that is why is it both shatteringly devastating to see the images from Gaza and also numbing. We don’t have to connect with the Other if we don’t want to, just plug in your headphones and go. Go ahead and scroll your phone walking down a hallway instead of the pain of having to make eye contact with someone else. Someone who might recognize something in you that they see in themselves. But why is connection important?

I think that this lack of regular connection and interaction leads to loneliness, leads to anger, leads to hate, and for Brown, leads to addiction. When there is no one else to turn to, we turn to our vices, devices and go inward. We find reasons to stick to what we’ve been doing, something to support how we feel about ourselves, binge eat, binge streaming, hardly raising our eyes to what’s in front of us, which is the Self.

So, I ask you, what’s your part in creating a sense of belonging?
I’ve been thinking long and hard on this. As I mentioned yearlier, there is this human need for connection, this goes beyond fitting in according to Brene Brown-in Atlas of the Heart, she reveals to us that belonging must include the belonging to the self, not just to others, for that would be a betrayal. And to connect with ourselves means to accept ourselves for the walking contradiction that is being human. For living in light and dark, not light OR dark. Belonging means holding space for the love and the anger, for the successes and failures, to living in the truth of who you are. That means, putting down your phone, talking to a stranger, letting someone in the lane who doesn’t deserve it, lifting up your competition, making way for those who might just be in your way.


xo

AJ

Ps. Here’s what inspired this post:

A Bit of Optimisim: Simon Sinek and Cleo Wade on her book, Remember Love.