Belonging

Here we go, I have been thinking a lot about this lately. It kind of makes me a little sad, but I am in a better place than I have been for a while, which makes it more bearable to think about tough things. All my life, I just wanted to be wanted, and for someone to "spoil" me from time to time.

It is hard to feel like you are not wanted as a little child. Complained about, openly disdained, from a young age. I felt personally responsible for my mother's misery and terrible life situation. If I had not been born, surely, her life would have been better. She always made it very clear that I took from her, her freedom, her goals, and that my brothers and I made all her dreams impossible. I knew this from as early of an age as possible. When I was a little girl, my mom would say things like "THIS is what life would be like without kids" as she climbed into a new shiny, red car with a convertible top that her friend had.

I would wake up to find her gone, or drunk, or smoking pot often as a little girl. It made me sad. So sad, I would go back to my room, stare at the ceiling, and cry. I knew she wanted those things- that life- more than she wanted her children to feel safe. To feel loved. To feel wanted and secure. I could not do anything about the way my mom felt about any of us. I could do nothing about the way it made me feel to know we were unloved, and regretted. I could do nothing about never feeling cared-about. But I could do something about my brothers not having anyone to care about them.

From at 7 on, I made sure my brothers had brushed hair before school- because my mom never got out of bed before we left. I made sure their clothes were as clean as they could be. I made sure they had breakfast. If I got a treat at school, it came home, and was shared with my little brothers. They deserved someone to love them. I could not spend the tax refund (of considerable size with five children) on clothes that fit us children, and shoes with no holes, or haircuts that helped our appearance. I would dream all the time what I would do with that money though. What I could do was mix up flour and sugar and butter (or margarine) and cook delicious treats. I could turn popcorn into a treat, and make casseroles that felt warm and comforting in our stomachs.

I could hold the babies on my lap. I could snuggle them and love them and sing them songs. I could carry them and point out the fluffy cloud shaped like a dinosaur. I could remark how amazing it was that flower was blooming despite growing from a mere crack in the ashphalt. "Just like you, Joshua. You are like that..." I would say.

When I left with my "dad" and turned around to see the babies crying and reaching for me- Joshua running after the car as it drove off, I felt sorrow. That day remains one of the saddest. Michael was 5 when the Marine corps recruiter drove away with me. He was on the porch crying, only to become a marine himself as an adult. Who would love them and kiss them and fix their hair? Thankfully, we would be together again, but there were years that I constantly feared for them. I did what I could to care for them from afar. I would take them on every college break, and their summer break. I would show them pretty things, take them on new experiences, and introduce them to sushi. My hope was that they would always know that they were loved and they belonged. That their big sister absolutely adored them. Every day. That she never regretted them. EVER.

As one who has struggled to feel that, it is truly remarkable how I recognize in others when they feel that way. It is my life's work to build those people up. To love them, and assure them of their meaning and importance. What has always been lacking, however, has often been my own sense of belonging. A lack of feeling needed... or wanted.

I have realized that this lack has led me to make some harmful decisions- just to feel like I belonged to something. For sure, I have met some amazing people. They are angels in my life. I have also met - loved and trusted- people who only wanted me to feel like I belonged if I did what they wanted me to do. I have been demanded to "get out" for not believing as they do and that hurts. It takes me right back to walking in to the living room at age 3, and seeing the little cigarette being passed around the room, my uncle coughing and choking. Me asking them to stop "GET OUT OF HERE! NO ONE WANTS YOU HERE!" from my mom. My life's calling is to never make a person feel that way, and to never accept it if someone does that to me or anyone else. I am still settling in, but I am finding my own place of belonging in this world. The most-valuable lesson I have learned in the last year has been that if I am not wanted unless I do certain things (on Sunday, particularly), then that was never a group with whom I belonged. I am caring and loving and kind across all boundaries. I am not defined by a group, or a book. I am defined by a lifetime of memories and lessons and knowing what hurts, and what makes people feel better. I am finding my place of feeling better more and more each day, and all the while, stopping to pull up others who are learning as well.