what does it mean to belong? 🌀
On adult friendships + platonic intimacy, and how codependence stunts your creative expression.
It’s hard to pinpoint the moment when the city you live in becomes your home. I had received the pink (not blue) sticker that said “member” and I kept pushing it back down onto my chest so it wouldn’t fall off so I could put it on my journal later. It was only until my body began to automatically navigate the outdoor hallways of the Hammer museum that it all began to register: this is my home now. In signing up, I had thrown a small anchor into Los Angeles for at least the next year of my life and its gentle tug would keep me tethered. It was a thin silvery cord that melded into the middlemost part of my chest and whose length was infinite. As I learned the gallery layouts, discovered my favorite piece and returned to it again and again, got emails for the new exhibits, and noticed slight changes, the cord slowly thickened as it grew brighter. To notice the slight changes of a place you often visit means you must first become a part of its journey: of its now (which will soon become its then), and of its future (which will soon become its now).
I handed over my ID to the membership lady when she asked, “Oh, you’re from San Francisco?” To be asked that in the town you grew up in is always odd because you immediately feel the need to prove your locality, but more importantly prove that you’re not a transplant. You want to say that you know Rainbows are the only acceptable sandal and you’re not even a big sports fan but who the fuck actually roots for the Clippers or the Angels and it has never ever been “Cali” and is it worth it to stay in town for the Olympics in 6 years, or will the traffic be too bad?
But instead I say a memorized monologue that rarely goes off script despite the ever-changing audience. I won’t get into it because you, dear reader, could predict my very words yourself. The only semi-interesting part where I’ve begun to observe my fumbled words is when they ask how I like it here so far and I answer with feelings and emotions that I haven’t yet actually lived. This performance lies between my honest longings and the truth which is too intimate to share with a stranger. It’s tangled up with the confusing similarities and differences of knowing the city that you grew up in and meeting that city for the first time as an adult. It is a process filled with nostalgia and repurposing old spots by overlaying new memories atop them. With regression into high school-ic ways that you thought you released 8 years ago. With knowing you must wipe the slate clean and start fresh or else you’ll be living in the shadow of an expired past self, while still desperately clinging to the tiny somethings that once made it feel like home here but now no longer do. It is a process that leaves my mind swirling around a question that gnaws at me: do I belong here?
I came across the idea of ‘belonging’ during my college years after a friend gifted me Brené Brown’s ‘Braving the Wilderness.’ Brené defines what she calls ‘true belonging’ as “believing in and belonging to yourself so deeply that you can share your most authentic self with the world and find sacredness in both being a part of something and standing alone in the wilderness. It doesn’t require you to change who you are; it requires you to be who you are.” We will never feel like we belong anywhere until we fully belong to ourselves. Be authentic, be genuine, yada yada yada. In college, the simple idea of being yourself was plenty for my lil insecure brain to ponder and worship, but now I needed to dive deeper.
What does belonging actually look like with the communal in mind? We can’t deny our inherently human need for community which bolsters our own sense of belonging as an individual by giving us contextual meaning. For years my communal belonging was either the volleyball team or the friend group, but now, with essentially 4+/- friends that lived all across the city and barely knew each other, my belonging was quivering in a way it never had before. I didn’t have a partner in crime to do everything with. I didn’t have a friend group to see Friday and Saturday. But at the same time, my growing need for solitude in my creative process made me no longer crave those types of friendships like I used to. I wanted something different that I hadn’t yet experienced and so I couldn’t pinpoint it. And so it remained a void that I danced around as I got tired of trying to force old friendships back into their expired dynamic and started daydreaming of new ones.
It wasn’t until my own toxicity was reflected back to me that my mindset began to evolve. As my friend was telling me about her bff she was growing distant from, she referred to this friend’s behaviors as ‘codependent.’ I was jarred hearing this not because of the stories of mistreatment, but because I found myself guiltily relating to the perpetrator. Our perception of every person/experience that comes our way is a mirror into ourselves––a reflection of our best and our worst and our areas that need healing, etc. I had known I had codependent tendencies to work through, but I never realized that attachment styles extend beyond romantic relationships and into platonic ones as well.
My belonging (and identity) had been defined by who I was friends with and which friend group I was in for as long as I have had memories. The idea of a ‘duo’ or a ‘trio’ or a ‘crew’ was so enticing. The exclusivity was phenomenal to be part of (yet, at the same time, not feeling included was one of my deepest insecurities). Regardless, I loved creating cliques and I thought it was simply because I prefer 1:1 situations vs. large group dynamics. And while I do enjoy smaller gatherings where more quality conversations can be held, I was blaming my ‘introvert-ness’ on what was really just unhealthy attachment.
Friendship then was all encompassing. I was always accessible, like those saloon doors that swing too and fro. I wanted to be the friend whose room you came barging into when you saw your ex making out with someone at a bar. The one you told secrets you had never told anyone else. And for so long, I was this for so many, all the time. But there was no stability in this, only high highs and low lows. The moment we got into the smallest of fights, the world came crumbling down around me because their existence in my life was so strongly linked to my sense of belonging. I equated the pressure it put on me with the toil of doing your life’s work because feeling needed had given me a false sense of purpose.
But friendships are not meant to give us self worth. It’s been in my friend-less weekends and solo outings that I have slowly begun to learn that friendships are meant to expand our capacity to love into the beautifully nebulous forms of platonic intimacy. Friendships now are voluntary (unlike e.g. our family) and that’s why they can feel almost holy. In high school and college you’re thrown together and friend groups often form without much thought because you’re doing similar things, whether it be sports, arts, greek life, some club, etc. Adult friendships too can arise from similar circumstances (e.g. work) but the difference is that you no longer have the similar lives that physically put you in opportune situations/spaces that facilitate you easily seeing each other. You have to choose to do so, and make time to do so, and drive from Santa Monica to Silverlake to do so. Seeing each other becomes an intentional choice you have to make and staying close becomes an act of conscious nurturing for the relationship.
This brings me to my next question: What does it mean to be close to a friend, now as an adult? More specifically, what does platonic intimacy between adults look like? It is no longer daily texts with updates in real time, nor 2–3X per week hangouts for hours on end. It is much less and somehow much more. It is seeing each other a few times a month and not fretting when it goes longer. It is the mutual understanding that our lives are no longer on the same schedule and so boundaries and communicating our energy levels become common texting banter. It’s telling each other you really do want to see more of each other and then that not happening because life got in the way but that mutual yearning somehow becomes enough in the interim.
It’s not that the bar for friendship has been lowered, it’s that we no longer need to depend on others to give us our sense of belonging. We find ourselves asking for less from others when we give more to ourselves via our own avenues of Self nourishment (see related tangent below). When we’ve rooted our source of belonging in ourselves and then allowed it to organically grow towards others.
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Since joining Hammer, I haven’t been able to muster up the courage to update my ID address for reasons I don’t yet fully know. Somewhere inside of me is still holding on so tightly to 1 Elizabeth Street, maybe because it’s the best address I will ever have (like come on, how good), or because it reminds me that nothing except for myself will make me feel like I’m home. Now when I look at my SF ID and see my old zip code that silently slipped away from my memory for the first time a few weeks ago, I remember that we only belong to a place as much as we belong to ourselves.
So without the town that you live in, without the job you have, without the family you’re from, without the friends you have, without the hobbies you do—where do you belong? How do you belong? Do you still belong?
I say, yes, you do. 💕
Related Tangent: Codependency Stunts Creative Expression 🎨
I hypothesize that my codependent tendencies in friendships stunted my own creative expression. How could I express myself when I thought true friendship was merging with another? When boundaries were non-existent and so time to myself to create was highly limited and so developing creative expression was a largely unfocused, highly censored, and erratic process? When I found identity through a relationship with another and not simply through my relationship with myself?
As a recovering codependent, I’ve begun to see the activities I do alone as ways to strengthen the connection with myself. Below I pull out the meaning behind each which transforms these seemingly mundane activities into fulfilling acts of self nourishment. I urge you to try some of these and then create your own!
Hobbies as the various mediums of self.
Journaling as the assessment and reflection of self.
Writing as the integration of self.
Therapy as the nurturing of self.
Meditating as the observation, detachment, and acceptance of self.
Neuroplasticity work as the re-programming of self.
Play as the release of self.
As my healing progresses towards a more secure attachment style, my creative process has flourished. And that is because creative people need solitude in order to create. I don’t care if you are an introvert or extrovert––if you are a creative, you quite literally need solitude. Say it with me: In the name of art…
I give myself permission to indulge in creative solitude.
I give myself permission to prioritize being alone.
I give myself permission to do nothing and treat that as me being busy/unavailable.
3 Quotes 💡
Tom Waits on the downside of endless knowledge at our fingertips:
“We have a deficit of wonder. I think it’s because of computers. Everything is explained now. When I ask people questions now, they get on their computer – ‘Gimme a few minutes and I’ll let you know…’ And I’m like ‘Nooooo!’ I want them to wonder about it, man! I don’t want to know the answer. I just want them to wonder about it.”
Marie Forleo on how to get clarity:
“Clarity comes from engagement, not thought. Take action now, you’ll find your truth.”
Carl Jung on judgement:
“Thinking is difficult, that’s why most people judge.”
Much love,
– Kristen 🍊