What do you belong to? Where do you belong?

[IHeartKingThistle]

I'd love some responses on this - I'm writing a collection of poems for my MA and I'm focusing on groups of people and the sense of belonging that you get from being in a group of some kind. Apologies if that sounds pretentious - I'm trying very hard to avoid that!

Please can you tell me what groups you are part of, or have been part of, that make you feel like that, even a bit? Anything at all would be appreciated.

Thank you. I don't mean to sound self-pitying - but sometimes belonging is hard.

Interesting thread.

I'm an atheist, but have often felt that a church group must give one a real sense of belonging.

Generally, I'm not a 'joiner-inner' so, other than at home and at work, I don't really think I belong anywhere. I'd like to though.

Agree about music - there's a local place we go to sometimes that plays 80s indie music. Although I only know the couple of people I go with and nobody else, it does definitely evoke a kind of 'belonging' when the dance floor fills to a particular favourite song.

sometimes belonging is hard

I love what Shalom23 said about feeling ‘part of books’ and that being ‘home’. Sometimes I’ve felt that the whole purpose of my existence has been to read and to extend myself into other existences. Reading has probably been more significant in my life than any single community.

ToLiveInPeace - I’m really grateful for, and empathise with, the phrase a domestic situation I can't readily talk about.

I can say that being part of the MN community has re-shaped my attitude in all sorts of positive ways.

Work: my job is intense - 13hr shifts, emotionally draining, we bond together through the trauma of the things we experience together. I don't really fit in, because most of my colleagues are 10-15yrs younger than me and talk about Love Island and other contemporary culture that I know nothing about, but we are part of something together through the bad times and the good. We are like a 'work family'. As with any family, there are people there I get on with better than others but we are all part of the group, and I have got some great support when life has been really hard.

Guiding: as in Girl Guides. As a depressed, isolated teenager who didn't have a good relationship with my parents, I found adults who cared and I felt like I was a part of something, locally in my unit and something that was known internationally. I stayed part of that, became a young leader and did my leadership qualification before I went to uni. When I left uni and didn't have a job or friends I returned to guiding in a new city, which gave me a group of people with the other adults who volunteered at the unit and bought me back to something that I knew. Some of the other leaders have come and gone over the past 12ish years since then and I don't get to go to my unit every week because of my job and family commitments, but I have made friends there and I know I still part of the group however infrequently I go (sometimes only a couple of times a term)

Wales. Its home. The mountains, quarries, lush land. I have a strong sense of longing for it when im away for a break in the city (which I don’t really like).

We call it “hiraeth”. And my patch is my “cynefin”. Sheep have their cynefin and its where they return to. Its home.

Also, gigs. When I go and see Frank Turner and am in a room/ tent with hundreds of other people singing the same songs and being part of the same thing

Following the "book" theme, I feel immediately at home in any public library - even in the USA, the sense of belonging is identical.

@Lindormilk love that about the sheep

If you are writing poems they need to come from your own sense of belonging or not belonging don't they?

I never really thought about.
I suppose I belong to a mental health community. Those that help me live every day. It's really hard to explain.

I belong to guilds in Neverwinter and Elder scrolls but, other than that I don't belong to anywhere else.

I don't feel like I belong anywhere. I feel I drift about. I have plenty of friends and a small family. I am a team manager and enjoy my role but I don't socialise with them even though we have a good relationship at work. I would love to feel like I belonged to some sort of group or family but feel detached a lot of the time.

Just to be clear I'm not unhappy or lonely. I think fear of rejection, or fear of letting people down prevents me from embracing that feeling of acceptance.

What a fascinating thread, I feel I've had an epiphany! ☺️

@joystir59 poems can come from anywhere. As I'm literally writing about different people, I just thought it made sense to ask people for their experiences. It's the same feeling people are describing, from so many different sources.

@QuaterMiss yes it's a Creative Writing MA but you specialise in one type of writing.

Thank you again to those sharing their stories and experiences. I'm loving these glimpses into other people's lives (and now I want to join bellringing and Scrabble and dowsing)!

@darkriver19886 just had to google that!

Spent all my life looking for somewhere I belong. Still looking.

I'm in a union but don't feel I "belong" to it.

I work here, there and everywhere so don't belong to a staff team.

I go to camera club once a week but don't talk to many people there.

I'm in some facebook groups but that's neither here nor there really.

When the dc are back at school I'm not lonely or unhappy though.

I feel very at home in my book group, and also with the rest of my female colleagues (I work overseas in a very male-dominated industry)

My football team. Small, provincial, not terribly successful.
Books, music.
Scotland - my Scottishness is important to me.

Hmm. Sometimes I don't feel I belong anywhere. But other times I feel I belong in my extended family; in my work team; in my Welsh class; with Archers... I'm going to say followers, rather than fans; with a group of feminist friends; with my Toastmasters club; with my women's network at work.

I 'belong' in a group of bright, fierce, focused but totally pragmatic and unpretentious women. Cavewomen.

I have found my people coaching sport and in various (but not all of the) schools I have worked in.

Since I turned 40 I've found where I belong. Following the efficive loss of parents and wider family, time in a number of bands and sports clubs I've found two groups of friends: a sports club comprising intelligent, articulate women with a professional commonality and from whom I have learned a lot about life and a group of school mums who have coalesced into family. We share childcare, activities, see each other together or separately and totally have each others backs. Together they provide my reality check and my safe places.

Wouldn’t you say research is as legitimate for poets as for playwrights or novelists, joystir59?

Besides, it’s a really interesting question.

OP I only hope you will be vigilant about the avoidance of stereotyping. People don’t necessarily fit into the boxes that others might have constructed for them. They may feel themselves to belong in places that look odd to you. They may decline to accept others’ presumptions about where they belong or what they might like.

Poetry can come from anywhere. One of my best poems is written from the perspective of a murderer, and that's definitely not a group I belong to!

I don't 'belong'.

Belonging is about ownership, possession, membership, rules, affiliation

I long to 'belong' but because of the above I resist it with every fibre of my being.

I belong to nobody, no-one. I make my own rules and decisions.

The 'not-belonging' comes after years of an abusive relationship. But the 'not-belonging' can be a lonely place as well as an empowering one.

Essentially, I belong to myself, and wherever my true self takes me, that is my tribe. It may be for a moment, or a day, or for the rest of my life. Then belonging is about true connection.

@QuaterMiss yeah I don't want to fall into lazy stereotyping. We're all individuals but this thread shows we have this desire to find common ground with people, even if we ourselves are a bit unusual. Maybe stereotyping is partly our fumbled way of clubbing people together somehow. It's all very interesting!

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie glad to hear it