The Ones Who Never Saw Me: Releasing the Need to Belong Where I was Never Meant to Stay

I wasn’t going to make a post today. I spent the weekend celebrating my son turning 16, and if you knew this kid, you’d understand that every birthday that he’s here, not hooked up to tubes in the hospital, is a good birthday. 

Not only are there lots of family birthdays in May, it’s also a time for proms, graduations, and high school reunions. Lots of celebration taking place. Family gathered in one place for a major milestone birthday while old classmates gathered in another place for our 25th year high school reunion. Is it time for the rocking chair yet? 

I wasn’t at either location. One, I didn’t know was happening. The other, I knew but had no intention of attending. One of my last memories of seeing those people involved me sitting around in a circle, listening to them all talk about how special high school was and how they’d all miss each other and me screaming through tears that I was glad high school was over and hoped to never see either of them again. 

Now when it comes to family, I used to be a lot more about effort. I was the one who remembered everybody’s birthdays, zodiac signs and birthstones. I used to write out family trees. I had an Ancestry account and traced our roots back to the plantation and beyond. I’m the first daughter, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter on my mom’s side with a total of seven half-siblings on both sides of the family that I know of. I currently have a relationship with one – and this is not for lack of trying. 

Being the only child that was born to my parents, who were fourteen and fifteen at the time, there was a lot of bad blood throughout. My mom’s side was angry, and many of them were never shy about letting me know that. My dad’s side, I didn’t know until I was almost thirty. Two of my siblings on his side wanted nothing to do with me because of their feelings toward him, and my paternal grandmother pretty much told me, “Don’t call me, I’ll call you.” 

Although I don’t try to reach out or connect with people who aren’t in alignment with me, a part of me at times can’t help but feel like that eight-year-old who used to bring her toys to school because nobody would play with her at recess. I can’t help but think of the seventeen-year-old who was told that therapy was for white people and that I only dealt with depression and anxiety because I went to that “white school” that I spent ten years begging to be taken out of. Although this struggle isn’t new to me, it doesn’t mean that it bothers me any less. 

After years of reaching out to people and either not getting a response at all or being berated, after years of trying to explain and defend my position and being called sensitive or a troublemaker or combative or whatever... I find myself wondering why I make the effort. The last funeral I made it to; I was chastised during the funeral over how I speak on social media. DURING the funeral. Mind you, I was 35 years old at the time. When I lost everything in a flood, two days after my son had a stroke, I received a bunch of Facebook comments about what people were going to do to help. None of that help ever came. I asked myself again, why was I continuing to try? 

Was it because life was too short? Because you never know when someone was going to pass away? And does someone passing away even matter when we don’t try to be involved in each other’s actual lives in a supportive or constructive way? 

I realize that I have cried the same tears and have felt the same anger for far too long. I realize that I owe it to myself to release the guilt and the grief while still holding onto my own truth. One of the reasons why it took me so long to understand that it’s okay to let go of what/who no longer serves me has been the fear of loneliness, but there is a difference between loneliness and liberation. Having people around you who make you sad or cause you anxiety because you share a few DNA strands doesn’t make you noble, loved or supported. It keeps you in your victimhood. 

Over the years, I’ve experienced the joy of finding chosen family, spiritual connection, and creative purpose as my real home. I could spend hours upon hours by myself with a stack of books, some canvases, and the sound of the birds in nature. I have some of the most supportive artist and writer friends, many of whom I have never met in person, but I know they would support me whenever I’d ask.  

So, as I conclude this late-night post, I vow to myself to stop shrinking for people who never saw my light. I vow not to reach back out to that person from my past, hoping that this time around, things will be different. I’m owning the radical act of being fully myself – loud, luminous, loving myself and those who love me – and even those who don’t from a very far distance. I’m making a vow to dye my hair pink if I want to or wear that blue lipstick or sing out loud to myself without worrying about if that kid in math class thinks I’m weird. 

This is an invitation to anyone reading this who feels the same to release the need to “belong” and choose yourself instead. I’m sure you may have a gang of people around you telling you to do the opposite as I have, but it’s time to stop the bleeding.