Belonging

I’ve always been a “guest star” kind of person. By that I mean that for most of my life I have been on the peripheral of social groups – one toe in, one toe out.

I’ve had my “cliques”, of course. High school was a prime example. I was part of things, at the events, considered “in”. In fact, most of the time spent socializing before it was too cool to stay home was spent in my backyard around a campfire. We would sit and reminisce about all the stupid things that had happened the week, or month, or year before. Had-to-be-there moments. And I was there for all of them. I was cool. And I was included.

But when it came to work groups, or university groups, or ex-pat groups when I lived abroad, I was always slightly removed from the core. There were the people that did everything together – defaulted to one another when there was ever an opportunity to gather. And then there was me. I was generally usually invited, and I believe my company was appreciated. But it wasn’t a given. I wasn’t in that “us-against-the-world” category.

And in retrospect, I realize that I designed it that way. I only chose select events to attend, and I was rarely the one to reach out and plan things. To make the effort.

It kept me safe. I could love people as hard as I wanted to, but I didn’t need them to love me. I was just fine alone if I needed to be. I was fine not being invited if that’s the way it went. I was happy being independent and free.

Except when I wasn’t.

It’s a strange thing to want to belong to everything – to everybody. Because when you want to be a part of everything, you end up sort of not being a part of anything. Or you become a kind of drifter when it comes to the tight-knit, interdependent fabric of intimate relationships.

I have “my people”. I have those handful of close friends that I have been through hell and back with, or that have maintained a fundamental place in my heart despite distance and time and circumstance. They are people that I could not imagine this world without – that create that invisible net in your heart that holds you up when you lose your grip, and remind you that there is consistency and stability and love underneath all things.

But I find myself in that place of yearning sometimes for that sense of belonging that comes from that “us vs. them” scenario.

Lately this longing has manifested in strange ways. This past year has been lonely to say the least. And yet, it has also been the opposite. I have been living in a hospital room removed from the world while Facebook reminds me constantly of the “cliques” and “groups” and gatherings I am not involved in. But I have also had the world open their hearts to me in ways that go beyond what I could have ever imagined. I’ve longed for the connection. I have ached for the invitations. I have mourned that sense of belonging that existed before my world turned upside down.

One piece of this journey that has been a struggle for me is how to define myself in this new world of ours, and as a consequence, what that means for my relationships. In the oncology ward, many of the parents become intimately connected because they share such a unique, powerful experience. When I travelled, I found myself in a similar boat. I leaned into the people around me more because I needed to. Because we understood each other in a special way. Because we were all removed from our previous lives – the world we knew – and needed each other to redefine ourselves. To protect one another. To give one another some solid ground.

But in the ward, I didn’t feel that way. I didn’t want to lean into anyone because I didn’t want to lean into the whole cancer thing at all. I wanted it to be temporary. I wanted to keep my head down and focus on wellness. I didn’t want to redefine myself in this new circumstance. I wasn’t a “medical mom” or a “cancer mom”. I was me – a mom and a wife and a friend and a daughter and all those things I had always been. But, for awhile, I was sleeping on a hospital couch, nursing my daughter and my soul back to health.

But there have been consequences to that. I have missed the opportunity to get close to a lot of people. I have limited my own ability to “help” others – to listen to their plight and give my heart to their circumstances. It’s selfish, without question. But we all have to create our own boundaries and pick our battles. Maybe because I knew just how monumental my own internal battle was, I was too scared to let anything in that might throw me off course. It was just too important to me that I maintain that positive, healthy perspective for myself and my family, and I knew the risks involved in opening up to that universe.

Now we are in transition. We are one toe in and one toe out of that world. And, by default, we are also half removed from “home”. I am in that all-familiar place of not really belonging anywhere. I have no clique, per se, to return to. Friends, yes. Incredible people whom I love dearly. But I am no longer a “default invite” anywhere. Everyone has their routines, their defaults, their intimacies they have been building for the past year that I have not been a part of.

And when we return to the hospital, it is difficult to know how to handle relationships in that realm. There are parents there that are in the thick of it – faced with immediate risk and heavy fear that we have, at the present moment, managed to keep at bay. There are so many emotions involved in that scenario that it is impossible to know how anyone else is feeling. I know for myself I have experienced resentment and jealousy and guilt over the circumstances of other patients so profoundly that it seems obvious that they, too, must feel the same. So there is always an invisible wall that keeps you distanced from other parents, other families. And also a strange pull toward one another. A need to share. A need to find that sense of belonging that seems so impossible with the outside world.

Why do we need to feel like we belong? Why isn’t it ok just to love others, appreciate them, take your invites when you get them and be grateful? Most of the time, this is more than enough. But there are those moments where all I want in the world is to know where I fit. Where it’s safe to be real and honest and understood.  

FOMO is real. No one likes missing out. No one likes being left out. We all want to be a part of things, to get the had-to-be-there jokes. We want the invitations. We want to be in the pictures on Facebook that prove to the world we count. My husband would disagree. He would say, “who cares?” He would feign complacency, but I know the truth. He wants to belong just as much as anyone.

As a writer, I spend so much of my time behind a screen, removed from things. I am an observer. And perhaps, at the end of the day, that is why I stay somewhat on the sidelines. I need personal space to reflect. And I’m a bit crazy. That’s the writer in me, too. Distance keeps others from discovering just exactly what that means.

But distance isn’t always ideal. Relationships are messy, and really, we never know exactly where we stand with anyone. We can be closer than skin with someone until some circumstance shifts our perspective, or pisses us off, and suddenly we feel like we never really knew the person at all. Belonging is a moving target. Even with family – the people you share history and blood with – things can go sideways and we can end up estranged. I don’t even think I’ve had more than a single conversation with two fabulous women from my wedding party in the past ten years. Two of my BEST friends. Things shift around. Life keeps moving.

Right now, I am ready to let down my guard and lift my head out of the sand. I’ve been in hiding for a long time. I want to get back out into the open, but I’m not sure how. I’m not sure what that even looks like. But if there’s one thing I know now more than ever before, it’s that intimacy is not a liability. It is a gift. And although boundaries are necessary, sometimes merely for survival, they are also malleable.

Violet has two and a half more months of treatment, and so still has her Central Line in her chest. She cannot swim in the lake because she can’t risk infection. We are back home for beach time this summer, but she can only wade in the water. We aren’t ready to dive right in. But maybe that’s ok. Maybe putting a toe in is enough. Ease back into it. Find our way back into the depths again when it’s time. When we’re ready. We haven’t missed out on everything because we have been gone for a year. We have just clarified to ourselves how important this part of life is. And when we don’t have to focus so hard on survival, it’s so much easier to open up. To lean in. To put both feet in the water.