There was a girl in my high school who frequently wore black and white striped tights. You know the ones? They looked like the ones worn by the green witch in The Wizard of Oz. Most times she paired those tights with a black dress or skirt — black was the thing.

This girl was smart and friendly, and she did not want to fit in with the rest of the mainstream kids who were all about the perfectly smooth ponytail (how did they do it without any bumps?), socks that perfectly matched their shirts or the right balance of huge jeans to fitted tank top. She didn’t seem to care about any of that, and was in fact trying to be the opposite of the regularly scheduled programming.

It took me a while to notice that there were other people who wore the striped tights, or variants of them. The girl who had seems so independent and alternative at first, was still part of a crowd. She was just part of a different crowd than I was.

We both still wanted to belong.

We ALL want to belong.

I’m here to tell you that regardless of your smooth ponytail, your fancy silver bracelet with the dangling heart charm, your fit body, your acrylic nails, you and I both desire to be known. We both desire trustworthy friends. We both get tired and lash out at the people closest to us. You might do it with a more pulled-together outer façade, but when the makeup comes off and the shades are drawn, you look a whole lot like me.

That’s not meant to be an insult.

I want you to know that when you get done making everyone think you’ve got it all figured out, even if you get tired of working at that goal and want a temporary break, you can come talk to me. We’ll laugh about how we ever thought we had fooled anyone, and we’ll try to figure out why we thought we had to fool anyone in the first place. You can remind me to pull a comb through my hair and I can help you get dirt under those expensive nails. We can belong together because we ALL belong together. Most of us just haven’t discovered that quite yet.

Today I’m linking up with Lisa-jo Baker and doing Five Minute Friday…on a Saturday. It’s open to anyone, and if you want to read some other posts, go check it out: Click here to read more

What about YOU? Where do you feel most like you belong? Do you cultivate an environment of belonging when you’re with others?  What times have you felt like you haven’t belonged?