thoughts on belonging
An email from a friend has me thinking about belonging.
What does it mean culturally to belong? For me, belonging is meaningful on two levels, in the microcosm and macrocosm. Family and society. Do I belong? No. I don't think I belong.
I stopped belonging in the microcosm when my parents split. I have my own developmental theory that may not be supported by science. We'll see. My parents split when I was almost 3 and a half. I became a shuttle, bouncing independently between them. Otherwise, at that age, I think I would've continued to think of myself as a part of a unit, an inseperable part of a three-person-family. I would have belonged to that. Instead, I became, perhaps prematurely, aware of myself as a separate individual, moving between two other individuals. Then stepparents entered the picture on both sides. I lived in homes with foreign, somewhat hostile forces. My existence reminded them of a forgone era in their new partner's lives. I was the holdout, the insurgent, in newly occupied territory. I did not, so much, belong, even in the home where I lived.
I never had the chance to belong in the macrocosm for two reasons. First, the South is a strange place. Living with my mom and stepdad, we moved around a lot. We did not belong, intimately, to any southern community. Therefore, we were outsiders in every southern community. Add further distinguishing factors: mom grew up in Miami and didn't have a true southern accent. Neither did I. Ironically, as we moved incrementally further north (from Georgia to South Carolina to North Carolina, I was called a Yankee by my new classmates b/c I didn't have their accent. At that point I'd never even visited anywhere further north than Virginia and I certainly wasn't technically a Yankee, but I *was* the thing they were accusing me of being: foreign to them.
In addition, my mom and stepdad became Mormons. In the South, Mormons are few and far between and it's considered a cult, not a legitimate religion. Instead of settling into some Methodist or Baptist church and in that way ingratiating ourselves to whichever community we were living in, we were Mormons and we were that much more foreign and removed from belonging.
I no more belonged when visiting my dad's than I belonged while living at my mom's. My lack of accent made me suspect there too. And the people I met had the sense that I lived in a big city, not a rural area like their own. I was novel and strange and I infrequently appeared. Some of my cousins thought I was a snob b/c my visits were treated as special occasions by some in the family. I was welcomed like a space alien or a foreign exchange student. I did not belong.
Then I discovered I was queer. That was certainly the final nail in the coffin of my belonging. In the South, I talk funny, I look funny, I fuck funny, I do not belong. I am 31. I am better educated than almost everyone in my family. I don't have or want a husband or kids. I am as foriegn as I could ever be. In a year, I will be a lawyer. I might as well move to Pluto as far as my family is concerned. A lawyer? As far from my family as British royalty. My dad works in a factory and makes about eleven dollars and hour. I'm going to be a lawyer.
At 26 I moved to Portland. A liberal utopia where I don't look or sound or fuck so funny. I work in mental health, something I've done for about 8 years total now. I go to law school, which I love. In superficial ways, I belong in these places. I feel comfortable with homeless crazy people, with law students, in the bars of the scraggly portlanders.
But the longing to belong, the myth of belonging, the deep sense my friend's email alludes to... I can't even fathom that. I feel best in motion on some level. Maybe because I never belonged anywhere, I've lost the capacity or desire to belong. Maybe that speaks to my inability to sink deep and remain in relationships. Maybe that's why I never ultimately feel at home with another person and why I bail after a year or so. Maybe that's why I run, instead, from woman to woman, friend to friend, scraping off the icing of the relationship without bothering to touch the cake underneath.
To belong. I feel suffocated just imagining it.
What does it mean culturally to belong? For me, belonging is meaningful on two levels, in the microcosm and macrocosm. Family and society. Do I belong? No. I don't think I belong.
I stopped belonging in the microcosm when my parents split. I have my own developmental theory that may not be supported by science. We'll see. My parents split when I was almost 3 and a half. I became a shuttle, bouncing independently between them. Otherwise, at that age, I think I would've continued to think of myself as a part of a unit, an inseperable part of a three-person-family. I would have belonged to that. Instead, I became, perhaps prematurely, aware of myself as a separate individual, moving between two other individuals. Then stepparents entered the picture on both sides. I lived in homes with foreign, somewhat hostile forces. My existence reminded them of a forgone era in their new partner's lives. I was the holdout, the insurgent, in newly occupied territory. I did not, so much, belong, even in the home where I lived.
I never had the chance to belong in the macrocosm for two reasons. First, the South is a strange place. Living with my mom and stepdad, we moved around a lot. We did not belong, intimately, to any southern community. Therefore, we were outsiders in every southern community. Add further distinguishing factors: mom grew up in Miami and didn't have a true southern accent. Neither did I. Ironically, as we moved incrementally further north (from Georgia to South Carolina to North Carolina, I was called a Yankee by my new classmates b/c I didn't have their accent. At that point I'd never even visited anywhere further north than Virginia and I certainly wasn't technically a Yankee, but I *was* the thing they were accusing me of being: foreign to them.
In addition, my mom and stepdad became Mormons. In the South, Mormons are few and far between and it's considered a cult, not a legitimate religion. Instead of settling into some Methodist or Baptist church and in that way ingratiating ourselves to whichever community we were living in, we were Mormons and we were that much more foreign and removed from belonging.
I no more belonged when visiting my dad's than I belonged while living at my mom's. My lack of accent made me suspect there too. And the people I met had the sense that I lived in a big city, not a rural area like their own. I was novel and strange and I infrequently appeared. Some of my cousins thought I was a snob b/c my visits were treated as special occasions by some in the family. I was welcomed like a space alien or a foreign exchange student. I did not belong.
Then I discovered I was queer. That was certainly the final nail in the coffin of my belonging. In the South, I talk funny, I look funny, I fuck funny, I do not belong. I am 31. I am better educated than almost everyone in my family. I don't have or want a husband or kids. I am as foriegn as I could ever be. In a year, I will be a lawyer. I might as well move to Pluto as far as my family is concerned. A lawyer? As far from my family as British royalty. My dad works in a factory and makes about eleven dollars and hour. I'm going to be a lawyer.
At 26 I moved to Portland. A liberal utopia where I don't look or sound or fuck so funny. I work in mental health, something I've done for about 8 years total now. I go to law school, which I love. In superficial ways, I belong in these places. I feel comfortable with homeless crazy people, with law students, in the bars of the scraggly portlanders.
But the longing to belong, the myth of belonging, the deep sense my friend's email alludes to... I can't even fathom that. I feel best in motion on some level. Maybe because I never belonged anywhere, I've lost the capacity or desire to belong. Maybe that speaks to my inability to sink deep and remain in relationships. Maybe that's why I never ultimately feel at home with another person and why I bail after a year or so. Maybe that's why I run, instead, from woman to woman, friend to friend, scraping off the icing of the relationship without bothering to touch the cake underneath.
To belong. I feel suffocated just imagining it.
posted by reasonably prudent poet at 9:53 AM
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