Belonging

Earlier this week, we attended a hockey game. Because we are cheap would rather spend our money on beer than parking, we ditch the car far away from the arena and walk in. We aren't alone in this, as evidenced by the large crowd we were walking with after the game finished.

Know how sometimes you're with someone in a group and you kinda get separated from each other while dodging traffic crossing the street or navigating stairs or something? And you're in the middle of a conversation and you just start talking again because you assume the same people are still with you?

There was this group of female students from a nearby university. You'd think they had been out clubbing rather than at a hockey game based on their shoes, the amount of cleavage, and their conversation about hooking up with this guy and that guy. They were what one might call "a hot mess" - the kind of girls you'd expect to see on-stage at a Pussycat Dolls show rather than at a hockey game.

As we emerged from the crosswalk, the crowd had been shuffled around. The blonde in front of me was still yapping away about the things she had done with some guy when she turns, looks at me and says "oh, you're SO not in my group!"

And in that moment, every dismissal I had faced at the hands of the popular kids in high school, every betrayal by a boyfriend for someone skankier hotter, every instance of self-doubt I had ever suffered punched me in the face.

No, I was SO not in her group.

And, as the years had taught me, thank goodness for that.