I have always wanted to belong, to a group, a movement, another. Maybe this isn’t particularly compelling. We are wired for belonging. Some eighty years after Maslow launched his theory of human motivation into the world, it seems as relevant as ever. Human nature doesn’t change so much as stay the same. Maslow’s hierarchy places love and belonging between safety and esteem. Maslow asserted that if one’s base psychological safety needs were met – reliable and consistent shelter, food, and a dependable livelihood or equivalent resource – there is a motivational desire to pursue belonging through intimate and social connections. We seek love and friendship. As we continue to climb Maslow’s pyramid, we pursue fulfillment of esteem which can be broadly understood as self-respect and the respect of others. And after that? Self-actualization, and the fulfillment of potential. Yet instead of some fixed point to be reached and then surpassed, I often wonder if belonging is a lifelong pursuit, fluid and drifting, contracting and expanding, that moves us toward our own place in the world and a sense of home.
I have tried to carve out a sense of belonging in ways that have been stumbling and formative, sometimes painful. These attempts at belonging typically involved following the path I thought was correct or good.
After high school, where I belonged to a small, wild, and wickedly smart group of close friends, I sought a sense of belonging at university where I realized that I had no idea what I was doing with my life. Spending thousands of dollars that wasn’t mine to play-act as an aspiring Responsible Adult created a type of tension I couldn’t sustain, so I dropped out. Rocketing into the workforce full-time, and no skillset to speak of, I grabbed the first job I could do well – or, well enough to cover rent, cigarettes, pizza, and gas to get to the rave. As a complete surprise to me, I was very good at taking care of people with dementia. Less surprisingly, I was not good at managing money or making Responsible Adult decisions. But I was good enough to hand out medications and help family members understand what the doctor’s notes said. Surely I belonged to the thing I was very good at doing, and it sure felt good to belong.
I kept following the path of belonging, eventually graduating from university with a degree so I could show everyone where I belonged – officially. I earned a place in the circle of Responsible Adults who also took out loans to get the piece of paper that qualified us to keep doing the things we were already good at doing but with a salary, acid reflux, and carpal tunnel syndrome.
As if all of this wasn’t enough, I sought belonging in the form of a long-term relationship and marriage. This was the path, after all; now, I would belong to the narrative my recent ancestors and living relatives created, and decades-long marriages were the norm. But I was not good at marriage, and neither was he. Instead of belonging, I found myself burning down the only heart-shaped village I’d ever known to escape into an indeterminate future with the thing I was still very good at wrapped tightly upon my back. One of my only true possessions.
Along the way, I found plenty of others who could also do the things they did very well. They belonged. I admired them, and they welcomed me. Together, we were advocates fighting daily for the dignity of strangers whose rights were eroded by a dysfunctional system of care. We learned to call each other friend, confidant, mentor, battle buddy, and occasionally, “Goddammit, not this asshole again.” And even though I was still good, and belonged, I began to feel the pull of other ways of belonging.
For one, I started to suspect that I wasn’t very good at anything at all. As a Responsible Adult I knew how to do one or two things very well, exclusively in relation to how I earned my living. I wanted to find new things to do well. If I was lucky, those things would help me make more money. Housing was becoming scarce in the city I loved as a rush of newcomers discovered they loved it, too. My hard-won sense of belonging began to warp at the edges of my awareness. I became restless, resentful. I needed to expand; it felt like everyone else was firmly planted. Sameness was safety; I felt only a lack of safety in sameness. The world was changing. I knew I had to change with it. I no longer wanted to belong.
I started trying to figure out what I could do next. The things I did well, and did for so long, did not appeal to me. What did I like? I made a list too long to prioritize, even with the help of my therapist at the time. A vague idea arose from the hundred or so things: Make something with my hands. This felt right, and still does. I signed up for classes to help me understand what I needed to feel alive and happy. I learned how to bake bread, decorate cakes, and break down a 300-pound animal for various cuts of meat. I learned about heritage grains, baked some more bread. I got a second job that seemed too good to be true, and tanked it after a few months because I was tardy, lacked speed, and the boss and business needed something I could not provide. I withdrew and tried to understand how something I loved so much would not provide a place for me to belong. I could not bear to use my hands for creating or baking for nearly a year afterward. I understood the term “creative wound” for the first time.
Despite my unraveling in other ways, I was lucky to find and belong to another. We left the city and moved into a home together. We said our vows along a snow-covered creek that was a short, icy hike from the parking area; Mayhem Gulch, the sign said. Accordingly, we spent our honeymoon at home in lockdown during the spring of 2020. He is my ride-or-die.
The pandemic accelerated my un-belonging more than anything else. Were it not for the complete interruption of life, time, and knowing anything at all I may still be worrying over my very long list, adding and scratching things off as my mind and desires and whims change. I found something new to do, not very well, and hated it for the first couple of years. I’m better at it now, maybe even good. Ultimately, I stopped doing things I did very well if they no longer served me. I started doing more things more often that brought me peace: painting, dance, long walks with a camera (always), studying the movement of bees, watching clouds, or nothing at all.
What I no longer have is the belonging – to a group, a movement. When I removed myself from belonging, I had to consider myself fully and in a harsh light – maybe for the first time. What do I want? What is for me, and what is not? Whatever sense of direction compelled me along a singular, “good” path for so many years became unreliable, and I am wandering farther from it all the time. My new compass isn’t fully calibrated so I am frequently lost. I am more lonely without my previous identity, but more at home with the person I am becoming.
I am learning how to belong to me.
