{...to belong}

I've got left over pain that runs deep inside me and I am having a very difficult time tonight dealing with it. I want so badly to rid myself of the scars, the terror, the anxiety, the loneliness it causes me. It isn't a new issue. It is ongoing, ever present. It sits on the edge of my heart and taunts me like a playground bully.

I've tried to work past my inner pain, to let go of the insecurities that inhibit me from being fully approachable, fully likable. Yet, I find myself incessantly wondering what the hell is wrong with me that I am constantly finding myself on the outside of the social circles? I am just always on the outskirts, in the suburbia arena, as I watch everyone else journey to the city. No one looks back to see me standing there, alone.

I am seemingly left out of every social network circle that I try to wedge myself into and it is cumbersome and heartbreaking to feel unworthy of attention, time, care and well, the reciprocity of what it means to be a real friend. I still don't have many of those. I don't really have a "bff" or someone that considers me their "bff." I have very few friends that I even trust with my heart...very few. I feel this guard has sucked my very last breath out of my body and I have nothing more to give. I find myself wondering why...why, God, why in the hell do I continue to share myself with the web of the internet with very little in return? Is it all about receiving? No. But let me tell you, I am sure it feels very good to be on that end on a consistent basis. I spill open for the world to see and watch silently in the shadows as people gawk and pass me by, every time, as if what I have to say or share-whether it is a photography, a blog post, an update- does not matter and is not worthy of their time to comment as they do with everyone else. Sure, let me not discount the wonderful people that do not. There are a small handful that are present because they genuinely care about me. But I am talking more about people who claim friendship and then treat you as though you are nonexistent.

I don't care how old you are, it still stings as if you were 8 and you are always the last chosen for teams. It still hurts no matter how hard I try to work through it. I really would love to know why people don't stick around or why people gawk and continue to walk away from me all the while they are swooning all over common "friends" right before my very eyes. It's heartbreaking to be left on the sidelines all the time. The circles are present. The cliques never really go away. Neither does the pain of feeling less than worthy. But this is something that I will work through this year. With diligence. I will do my best not to be kicked while I am down and better yet, I will work hard not to let being on the outside hurt so deeply. Because, after all, what makes being in some of those circles that special?

At 36, I hope to find my own circle that loves me the way I love them. I mean, isn't that what life is about any way? Surrounding yourself with positive, uplifting people that enhance your life? I don't want to hurt like this any more. Rejection, isolation, abandonment... they all are just too painful. I am just an ordinary woman who wants what most people do, acceptance...to feel like a part of something bigger. To belong. I don't know where I belong.