Belonging

It seems that I have struggled to fit in and belong for most of my life. My earliest memories of childhood and school were feelings of standing on the outside looking in. Never seeming to fit, for years I have felt like a square peg around nothing but round holes.

Even in with family, where we should feel the most secure and accepted, I have felt like an outsider. My parents were divorced when I was around 10 and both remarried. My mother several times. My father only once more, to a wonderful lady that I call mom. I love my stepmother dearly and I refer to her children as my brother and sisters. But when you look at family photos, you will see the division, hers and his.

I am most likely then only one that notices this division. All of the rest have children of their own and have built families of their own. I am the only one that clings to them like a drowning person clings to a life raft. I am the only one that is desperate to belong and to be a part of the family.

It hurts to hear my "mom" talk to me about "her kids" as if I were a neighbor that she confides in, and not actually on of the kids. I try to understand how difficult it must be to feel equally about children that you gave birth to and children that you "married". But even though I try my best to understand, it still hurts.

It hurts to be excluded from pictures because I am not a real sister. Especially when I have accepted them as my siblings, and love them and their children as if we were related by blood.