Belonging

What does it mean to belong? What creates that feeling in us? The feeling of "this is my home -- this is where I'm most comfortable -- where I know I'm supposed to be". The feeling of absolute rightness.

How does it happen?

When somebody says home, there are two places that come to mind -- neither of them are my physical home (not to say that I dislike it, it's just not the first place that comes to mind).

The first and immediate one is the Bell Center at the MidAmerica Nazarene University where the annual One Year Adventure Novel Summer Workshop is held. The way the light comes in through the windows and warms the tiles and lights up the brown paneling. The hustle and bustle as people group and talk and hug and laugh. The way the individual groups can suddenly turn into a crowd of joy. The way OYAN makes it home.

I don't know that many people there, but I don't have nearly as much social anxiety. Usually, around that many people, I find myself reduced to a nervous puddle in the corner. At the summer workshop, I am happy -- I belong.

People say TeenPact is a similar community, but I'm not sure. I love the program and the people are wonderful, but I've never felt like I belong. I've never wanted to stay in touch with people from TeenPact (sorry, guys!). Maybe it's because between my anxiety and the rigorousness of the program I find myself functioning in a state of exhaustion that prohibits me from even wanting to attempt to socialize. Maybe it's because I don't know most of the people period. Long story short, I've never belonged in the TeenPact community.

OYAN may exhaust me, but it thrills me and excites me at the same time. There's something freeing in a community of people who all understand social awkwardness. Shared pain and shared interests draw us together. It's easier to talk to people, to relate to people. Even then, it doesn't explain how I can be almost extroverted, drawing energy from being around people. Almost.

There's one other place that I think of when someone says home: My dojang. For whatever reason, the families that are there now are a community.

Maybe it's because many of them are there almost every day.

Maybe it's something else.

But whether I'm sitting on the bleachers or working on the red and blue mats of the ring, I know I belong. We laugh, we cry, we hit each other -- we're a big happy family.

I don't know why that sense of belonging happens. It just does.

It's wonderful and magical and I wish I could feel it more often -- but the rarity of the sense that there is nowhere else in the world that I'm supposed be makes it all the more special and worth treasuring.