The Othering of May

 Every May, I remember anew: May is always terrible. 

May is always a full of change: the end of a school year. The Unmooring. Add to that the abundance of social gatherings associated with the various changes, and Otherings become more obvious than usual during this time. 

What are Otherings? They are those moments when I am acutely aware that I Do Not Belong. 

I am an Other, an Outsider. I have always been one. I am relatively comfortable being one. Every now and then, though, it makes me sad, because every now and then, I would like to Belong. 

It's hard to give examples, because they are little things. Things like -- when a group carpools, who is invited to ride with whom (when I become the afterthought-invitee as I get into my car by myself); conversations centering around things about which I have no experience or interest, such as gel manicures, or wine, or that yoga class which everyone else is attending but to which I was not invited; the omnipresent, low-grade language barrier when I am the only individual who does not have a solid grasp of conversational Spanish (that is my fault, though, I know). 

And upcoming, too, is a college reunion that Beloved Husband and I will be attending. On the one hand, I am looking forward to it a little bit, in a "returning to one's roots" sort of way. I loved school, in that school has always been one of the things I have been good at. (Math! Science! Concrete answers! The best!) On the other hand, college was also a very isolating and Othering time. I didn't really know how to make friends. (It was always hard to figure out with whom to sit in the dining hall or in class.) Socializing? Complex and nuanced beyond comprehension. So much people-ing. So many things I did not understand. So much loneliness. Reunions is a microcosm of that -- who remembers whom? Who wants to talk to whom? 

Compounding the difficulty at the moment, is my current sense of Self. I'm a middle-aged, chunky, nothing-special-to-look-at woman: nothing to see here. I've lost that one edge I had in college -- my physical form as "the person most wanted to spend five minutes in the closet with" (a silly vote among my peer group at the time, a weirdly bittersweet memory now). I don't want to be perceived.  But how can I Belong, if I am not Perceived? It's a quandary. 

I don't think my People understand. Beloved Husband, eternally cheerful, eminently sociable, ever Belonging -- I cannot explain to him. Cherished Friend is too literally and perhaps metaphorically distant right now to have the conversation to explain. My siblings are extroverts with friend lists as long as my arms. They are not Others. I am the Other. 

I need to come to term with my Other-ness. I will never be anything other than Other, I know. Right now, though, I would love, for a few minutes, to feel as though I Belong.