Family and Belonging
 

Does everyone go through a phase where they feel like they don't belong anywhere? I've been away at college and coming home is so weird for me. I miss so much and feel so left out. I feel somewhat like a stranger in my own home. I'm just so different from my family. They're all so loud and they tease each other so much (it's a young family, I'm the oldest of 5). I'm more the introspective type and I love to read (all the others hate to read) and I'm not much for the teasing really. I don't fit in with them very well, you know? Hopefully this is a phase. I want to feel like part of my family. It sucks though because now I find myself wanting to go back to college just to get away from this feeling of emptiness. Am I the only one?

I've felt that way just about all my life. You're not alone in being alone.

I'm the exact same way, except that I'm the youngest of 5. Thats really odd, I felt like I was reading my own post :)

Yeah, I just got out of my first year, and just got to summer school today. Man thats weird.

I felt like this after I moved out to go to college, and the feeling pretty much stayed with me until about six months ago. I never felt like where I was living was "home"; I think that now my son is a little older and we are a little more rooted (hubby was in the military, so we moved cross country) I'm starting to feel like I'm finally home.

I moved out of the house for two years, and moved back in a year ago. In the time I was on my own, I grew into my own person once out of the constant influence of my parents. My struggle is to continue discovering and learning about myself, especially when my path diverges from theirs. It has made for some interesting challenges, none of which will get any easier as time goes on.

I remember this feeling after being away at college for the first year. It wasn't perpetuated so much from a feeling towards my family, but moreso the absence of my friends. Most of the people who i hung out with at "home" before leaving for college were still away at school, working out of the area in summer jobs, or enlisted and relocated. There was a distinct sence of change and emptiness in what i had remembered as "home" even tho not much had changed with my actual family.

I didn't like this feeling, so much so that for subsequent summers i made sure i had other plans either working somewhere or traveling somewhere that i didn't return "home" for the summer break.

Yeah, the group of friends I usually hang out with has undergone a bit of a change. Not in that they've changed or that they're not here (although some of them are at summer school), but we're less likely to hang out. I broke up with my boyfriend, who has the same group of friends, pretty recently and I think the group is uncomfortable with the situation or maybe he told them that he was and therefore I can't really hang out with them. Anyways, I guess the point of this is that maybe you're right about not coming home in the summer. Maybe next year I'll do summer school or find some thing else to do that doesn't involve returning home. Home just isn't home anymore.

Sure, everyone feels like they don't belong until they do belong.

Does that make sense?

Oddly, though I don't feel that way at home with my family. I just started a new job and haven't yet managed to find the ebb and flow of my co-workers (they've been working together for years.)

Going to collge is entering a new phase of your life. Home doesn't feel like home anymore, because it's not. That doesn't mean you love your family any less or that you can't have any contact with them; it's more like after being away from them, you've started on your own path and it's not the same one they're on anymore.

i haven't gone to college, but when I moved out I got the same vibe. Mum likes me to stay with her over Christmas, but I just don't feel right when I'm there. It's just not home for me anymore and there isn't really anything I can do to change that.

I've felt the same way for awhile now, once I got past 16 or so I lost that feeling of having a home. Family is so so. It's not quite as bad with my family but I'm no where near most of them. My cousin and dad are really the only ones and even then I rarely see either fo them. There is a quote that goes something like "Family is not made by blood but by those you love, often you do not start out with your family" except it sounds better and wiser.