Belonging

I've had a small revelation tonight. Really, on the inside, I'm just back in Jr. High. And really, for all the crap we give Jr. Highers, that's not such a bad thing.
I went to a movie tonight with my mom and her slighlty depressed, very stressed friend. And, oh!, coming back, I feel so down. And I've been trying to figure out why. I got a bit sad, during the movie (Pride and Prejudice, for the third time), and at first I thought it was only about realizing there are some things in life I will never do (i.e., live in England). But then, I thought, Why do I want to live in England so badly??? Why does that seem so ideal and safe, in a little village in the Peak District? To dance and laugh and hardly be well educated or important? (Being well-educated and important being of course the two most important things in life.) And I think maybe I'm beginning to see why it is. I suppose I've never really felt a sense of belonging in my own home. From a very early age, I began to set up sharp distinctions between myself and my parents and the way we do things and view the world. I never felt at home in school, either, because I was always the smart one, the geek, and the one who was far too naive for her own good, the one who didn't have Barbies and couldn't watch Full House. But, in books, there was a world in which I did belong, becuase Everyone belonged, no matter how silly or stupid or bad. In books, I found community.
My favorite books, which I have grown up on from the age of 12 or 13, are the novels by Jane Austen. I know those books backwards and forwards, they are my world of safety, my world of intellectual stimulation, my world that never rejects me or leaves me behind. And everyone in those books Belongs, even if the don't, really, simply by virtue of being in the books. All of her novels are set in England, and thus when I visited England in college, as we descended onto the tarmac among fields of yellow flowers, I felt like I was coming Home in a way I have never felt anywhere else. It was so odd to me, that I should feel that way, but wonderful all the same.
However, I think that's why the fact that I will never live in that uneducated British village is disheartening to me. First, because, of course, if I really went there, it woudln't matter that I can recite Pride and Prejudice backwars and forwards, I would Never be a member of the community, I would be The American. Secondly, tho, I think that uneducated British village represents to me my hopes to Ever feel a sense of belonging, and when I realize I will never live there, I feel as tho my hopes of belonging are dashed for all time. Forever and ever I will be an outsider. Just as I have always been.
Yesterday I visited an old professor of mine for the evening, and it was Wonderful. It was so different (and a bit scary!), relating to her as a friend instead of just a professor, esp. since she seems to want me to call her by her first name!, but for those brief hours we were together, I felt so understood, so supported, so much like I belonged. Which is funny, becuase in some ways she and I are very different. But her unconditional support was wonderful.
Now I'm back at home, surrounded by decidedly conditional support, and by many people with whom I do not have a sense of 'belonging.' Friends are far away, with their own lives to lead, their own happiness which can only partially be mine, or their own struggles which I cannot experience with them. And my family, oh!, I am sad about them. I love them, and feel this tinge of homesickness about leaving them next week, and yet much of the time I Can't Stand Them. But it makes me sad to know pretty much for a fact that I will never again come back to this house as 'home.' Home will always be somewhere else now. Only now, of course, I haven't got one.
Right now, I walk a narrow path, on a high ridge. I have a purpose, a goal, and work to do, and I like both the purpose and the work, but it's very lonely on the ridge. I feel as tho if I slip up, if I lean out too far to the left of to the right, I will fall away, and there will be nothing there to catch me.
Jr. Highers aren't stupid when they want to 'fit in.' As primitive as it is, this is their way of showing their need for community. And we all need it, yes, every last one of us. Please, God, show me mine.