Belonging…or Not

Recently on a sunny Mexico day, I stayed after a group of writers I often join, had left. I wanted to chat with the friend who was hosting the session. I’ve seen her come a long way in her writing since I first met her, although clearly, I’m in little position to judge. We all have different writing styles as well as writing objectives and goals.

She has lived an amazing life and all evidence points to it becoming an even more impressive one as she works diligently on her memoir.

Recently she hired a memoir coach. She is progressing with her various assignments, and I was eager to hear about her experiences. Her coach may have given other assignments which were meaningful and useful but somehow, I got stopped at one of the first one she mentioned.

I no longer recall the specifics of how the assignment was presented but I won’t forget the results for a long time.

The assignment, a seemingly simple one, was to focus on a theme in the memoir. In other words, what was the memoir about? Was that another way of saying…what has your life been about?

She had wrestled with the assignment for a bit. Then she concluded that her life theme had been about belonging or not belonging as she wanted. She went on to give some powerful examples of how she had longed to belong to various high school, college, or work groups.

“Wow!” I thought as I listened to her. What had been my life been about? How would I complete the assignment if given to me?