Letters From the In-Between: you deserve a place where you feel chosen
- 5 days ago
- 4 min read
I spent years chasing a place to belong,
not knowing the search itself was wrong.
For what is truly meant for you,
will never ask you to prove your value.
For years, I thought it was normal to live looking for signs. Signs that I mattered. Signs that I belonged. Signs that my presence was welcome. I thought that was how relationships worked. Today, I understand something different. When someone genuinely enjoys your presence, you do not have to become an emotional detective to figure it out.
I know because I spent years trying to decode it. Reading between the lines. Wondering what certain silences, absences, and gestures meant. Looking for evidence that I mattered, that I was loved, that I belonged.
And I understand why.
Because when you have experienced rejection, a part of you becomes an expert observer. You learn to scan every room. You learn to read people. You learn to notice things others do not even see. Not because you are looking for problems, but because a part of you is still trying to answer the same question she asked when she was a little girl:
Is there a place for me here?
And perhaps that is what hurt the most to realize. That for a long time, I confused belonging with effort. I thought belonging meant trying a little harder. Reaching a little more. Adapting a little more. Showing up a little more. Holding onto the thread a little longer.
And maybe that is why it hurt so much. Because it was not just an experience. It was an illusion breaking. And broken illusions hurt. Not because they were false, but because for a long time they helped us hold together a story. A story about who we are. About where we belong. About the place we occupy in other people's lives. And when that story can no longer hold itself up, something inside us has to reorganize.
But true belonging does not work that way. True belonging feels different. It feels like rest. It feels like arriving somewhere without wondering whether you fit in. It feels like being fully yourself without constantly watching other people's reactions. It feels like no longer searching for proof. No longer wondering where you stand. No longer trying to earn your place.
And there is something I wish I had understood much earlier. There is a huge difference between being tolerated and being celebrated. For a long time, I did not know how to tell the difference. I settled for small moments of closeness because I thought that was what relationships required. I believed every relationship demanded that constant effort to keep it alive, to hold it together, to prove that you were still there.
But today I want to tell you something different.
Do not settle for being tolerated. Look for places where you feel welcome. Look for people around whom you can lower your guard. Look for relationships where you do not have to interpret signals. Look for friendships where affection can be felt. Look for spaces where your presence matters and your absence is noticed. Look for people who genuinely enjoy sharing life with you.
And do not settle for relationships where you are always the one holding onto the thread.
True love is not measured by how much you give. Neither is friendship. It is felt in both directions. In the interest. In the presence. In the mutual desire to keep building the connection. The healthiest relationships are not the ones that require the most effort. They are the ones where care is allowed to flow both ways.
Because there is a loneliness more painful than being alone. It is the loneliness of feeling alone while surrounded by people. I want you to remember this the next time you find yourself wondering where your place is. Your place is not somewhere you have to convince yourself you belong. Your place is not somewhere you have to search for evidence that you matter. Your place is not somewhere you spend your energy guessing how other people feel about you.
Your place is somewhere you can rest. Somewhere you can be completely yourself. Where affection does not need to be interpreted. Where friendship does not need to be chased. Where belonging does not need to be forced.
And maybe that is what this pain came to give you. Because pain does not arrive to punish us. Pain arrives to illuminate a truth, even when that truth hurts. Some pain arrives to set us free. To help us stop chasing. To help us stop guessing. To help us stop settling for less than what our hearts truly long for.
And maybe that is what this pain came to remind you: how you deserve to feel. Because you deserve more than a place where you are merely tolerated. You deserve a place where you feel chosen.
What I Know Now
True belonging is not chased.
It is not proven.
It is not guessed.
It is felt.
It feels light.
It feels safe.
It feels like rest.
Carry This With You...
If it does not feel right, it is definitely not the right place for you. Maybe you do not know where that place is yet. But when you find it, you will not have to guess. You will feel it and know immediately.
Before You Go...
Is there a relationship in your life that invites you to question more than it allows you to rest?
I'll read you in the comments.
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