“BITCHY” JUNE ‘23 PROMPT:

Belonging: Belong, Belong, Belong…

Say it ten times fast and what a weird word it becomes

Suppose one researched the origins of the word ‘belonging’ and the implications of its use, what it means.

That seems like so much work when we can learn from experience. We are here now, considering these words along with other readers who have chosen to look beyond the title.

We have found ourselves here, together.

Hopefully, belonging?

Not sure if we do belong.

This brings to mind a question — is belonging someplace, or in some group, like many things, relative?

Similar, for instance, to time, age, and beauty? Concepts that are contingent upon context and perspective? Is it a matter of point of view?

Belonging to a group of human beings who are identified, by one definition or another, as post-adolescent females labels me as a ‘woman’. I belong to the group: Women.

When we remove individual identifiers that label us, the result puts all of us in a group we’ll call, for the purposes of this writing, ‘human beings living on the planet Earth’.

We all belong in this one big, cohesive group. Spinning around the sun on our little blue orb. Together.

Ah, what a relief.

I can take comfort in that I ‘belong’ in at least two places. With women as a group, as well as with all humans living on this planet, where diversity among us is inherent.

This affirmation alone provides me with some sense of belonging.

Is this enough?

It seems relative to me. What about you, do you agree?

There are subsets within everything and there are subsets within these subsets. So many things to which we want to belong, each being a smaller and smaller bit of the whole.

Each is more specific as to what belongs. More exclusive. We are diverse, and we long to belong…a conundrum to solve.

I am a woman.

I am a gray-haired woman.

Oh, there it is…I’ve segregated myself into a silo within the bigger silo. Relative to how one views it.

A point of view, perspective.

Now, will younger (another relative concept) readers suddenly reconsider their idea of who is behind all these words?

Now that it’s known that I celebrate gray hair, and am most likely very different than them? Than you?

Do I belong here? Writing something for everyone, yet now questioning my ability or my permission to do so.

Because, perhaps, I don’t belong.

Have I been sorted into a category determined by my amount of time spent breathing on this planet? Asking people who are outside my sphere of belonging to consider my words?

It would be difficult to find a person among us who hasn’t experienced the gut punch of dismissal, invisibility, or of being overlooked.

On the flip side, who among us can honestly state that we’ve never dismissed, ignored, or simply overlooked another?

Someone is left outside, looking in.

Oh, this takes me back. I cringe now, remembering the older woman we did not hire at a tech start-up I worked for years ago.

Why was that? Because she ‘didn’t fit the office culture’, or because the younger applicant was actually more qualified?

I don’t recall now. That was way back when, and my skin was smooth and my hair was golden brown.

I do recall the first time it happened to me. Lost my composure at a job interview. Everyone was so young.

Staring at me with their jaws on the floor.

I know now why that woman, way back when, lost her composure during that job interview at our start-up. She lost her nerve.

The same nerve I lost when those eyes questioned why I was there, daring to join their youthful ‘office culture’.

Be it with an unfortunate and purposeful manner, or as an honest oversight, distraction, or lapse of awareness, we’ve all done this sort of thing.

We’ve all missed an opportunity to include others at some point in our lives. For whatever reason, real or imagined.

We want to belong to exclusive groups. Yet, what makes life in this world so exciting, such an adventure, can be found in the diversity among and between our groups…we can’t belong to them all.

Certainly, it’s impossible to include everyone in everything everywhere, for many reasons. The best we can do is try.

To recognize and consider, to speak up for, to support or argue for, or justifiably against, something or someone.

Even the things to which we do not, or cannot belong.

It’s more than a word. Belonging.

It’s relative.

Perhaps, when faced with doubts about whether or not we or others belong, as we ponder qualifications for inclusion, we step back and think about perspective.

To consider that we are all human beings living on the planet Earth. And go from there.

You, me, and them. We belong.

Thanks for reading. Here’s more from Ellen Anne Chong: