Belong

It's Five-Minute-Friday! 

Topic:  Belong

Go!

I have been and continue to be a member of several groups and organizations.  But I don't necessarily feel like I "belong." 

I am a member of the Larsen family, but I haven't always felt like I was a Larsen.  At times I even wondered if I might have been adopted.  I just felt different, somehow.  I felt like the odd one out. 

I had groups of friends throughout my life where I felt kind of like the outsider or the fifth wheel as everyone else would pair up with their best friends and I just wanted to branch out and be friends with everybody. 

I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and although my beliefs are strong, I haven't always felt like I belonged there, either. 

I went to BYU, and I certainly didn't feel like I belonged there.  I kept wondering, "where do I belong?  What is my purpose, anyhow?"  I changed my major a hundred times.  I changed schools.  I kept searching. 

After I got married, my husband and I ran off to Iowa for a semester for a soccer scholarship.  I tried out for a dance team just to get the scholarship... It was fun, but, still, I didn't feel like I belonged.

After we had our first baby, I joined the MOMS Club.  I loved getting together with other moms in my small town of Blacksburg, VA, where we were living at the time, but somehow I didn't really belong there either.  I wasn't quite at ease in that tiny town, I wanted to keep moving, I had to get out and move on.  I wasn't quite ready to be at a point of settling down into a routine.

We moved to Fayetteville, NC where I joined different Meet-up groups in the area for military moms.  It was a great way to make friends and have support, but I still hadn't found my niche.  I joined Stroller Strides, made great friends, enjoyed the outdoors of NC while exercising, but I was still seeing myself as an outsider, someone who would move on soon. 

We moved to the D.C. area, and I joined the Oakleaf Club (for military medical wives), and instantly decided I certainly did NOT belong to that group. 

Where do I belong??? 

I became a member of a gym, here, but don't always feel like I belong.  I go to work out amongst the retired population, because that is who is there mid-morning, and they don't always appreciate my bunch of noisy children that I bring with me through the hallways.   That goes for the grocery store, as well.  The elderly people in this town do not take kindly to children.  I always feel like an outcast here.  There are not many stay-at-home moms in this region.  I was invited to dance with an international dance group.  I feel a connection with these women through our love of dance, but, being the only one with kids, I still feel like I didn't quite belong.  I always have to turn down their offers to go out to lunch or to evening concerts, etc. because I am a busy mom of three young children.

All of these groups have offered me something in the way of feeling connections and friendships, but I still never quite... belonged.

Then, I thought about it.  Where do I really belong?  Like REALLY. 

At the end of a long, frustrating day, as I sit down to read to my children and they all huddle up close and fight over who gets to sit in my lap, I feel ultimate love and acceptance and I most certainly belong there.  After I kiss them and put them to bed, I go downstairs and my husband takes me into his arms in a loving embrace and I just melt.  I certainly belong there.  There's no where else that I feel more love.  There's no where else that I feel more belonging.  I belong here, alongside my man, raising these children, enveloped in love.

Stop.

"I belong to you... and you belong to me"