Happy International Labor Day!
On Belonging, and What We Trade for It
There’s a version of you that would do almost anything just to feel included.
Maybe not even included, just not outside of it.
A seat at the table. A group chat that replies. People who already seem connected in a way you can’t quite enter naturally. So you adjust yourself a little. You laugh harder than you mean to. You stay quiet about certain things. You become helpful. Easy. Low maintenance.
Because being useful feels dangerously close to being wanted. And being wanted feels close enough to belonging.
The hard part is how slowly it happens.
Nobody wakes up one day deciding to betray themselves. It happens in smaller ways. You let something slide. You pretend not to mind. You keep showing up for people who would never really show up for you. And one day you realise you’ve been performing a version of yourself for so long that you’re not even sure anyone there actually knows you.
And the worst part? Sometimes the group wasn’t even that special.
Sometimes you wanted in so badly that you never stopped to ask whether those people were even good for you. Whether you actually liked them. Whether you were chasing connection or just trying not to feel left out.
But maybe that’s part of how we learn.
Some lessons can only be learned after you lose yourself a little. Some rooms have to disappoint you before you understand why you entered them in the first place.
And then there’s the other kind of person.
The one who seems completely comfortable. The one who belongs everywhere without trying. The one who no longer feels that ache.
At first, you think maybe they’ve figured something out.
But sometimes comfort isn’t wisdom. Sometimes it’s just familiarity. Sometimes people stop searching because they got tired, and not because they enlightened.
I think that’s what makes this difficult.
We spend so much of life trying to be chosen by certain rooms, certain people, certain worlds. But eventually you have to ask a harder question:
What did it cost you to stay there?
And was being accepted ever the same thing as being known?
Maybe belonging was never meant to be the final destination anyway. Maybe it’s just one stage of becoming. One place where you learn what parts of yourself you’re willing to trade, and which parts you eventually want back.
So if we reflect and see: Am I actually where I belong? Or am I just somewhere that finally agreed to let me in?
Agree? Disagree? Have your own version of this story? I want to hear it, write me here: postcardsfrombali18@gmail.com