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Isabella Lenik

Mrs. Cameron

Creative Writing

02 February 2024

A Sense Of Belonging

A sense of belonging can be described as knowing your place, and knowing your place

can be described as a sense of belonging. They are synonymous, at least in my eyes. Growing up

I never had that “sense of belonging” that most people develop during childhood. I moved

around a lot. State to state, town to town, you name it. Every time I bring this up to someone they

always ask if my parents are in the military, and again and again I respond that they aren’t, just

indecisive. I was born in Cottonwood, Arizona, and by the time I was three, we had moved to

Atascadero, California. I don’t think that did anything to me in terms of my development, as I

can’t even remember it. My mom told me that before I was born they had moved from Santa

Rosa, California to Cottonwood. To be more specific, she moved. The first month or so of my

mom’s pregnancy she lived alone in Arizona, separated from her family, her friends, and most

importantly her husband. My dad was still finishing things up in Santa Rosa, putting in his two

weeks and making sure everything was moved out of their condo. I guess that’s where the

indecisiveness began.

I began my schooling in Atascadero, attending preschool through the first half of

third-grade there. I remember my dad telling me we were moving, and the worried look on my

mom’s face. The move from Arizona to Atascadero had been one for his job, and this one would
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be too. He had applied for a job at a grocery store in Clackamas, Oregon, and didn’t decide to tell

me until he had already gotten and accepted the position. My dad was a meat cutter for over

twenty-five years before he quit, and all of these moves were because of this job. I never knew

meat cutting was such a traveling field. Maybe it isn’t, maybe it just was for him. For us. I don’t

know why he kept moving around, uprooting our family and continuously causing me to be the

“new girl” at every school I attended. Despite my seven-year-old protests, we ended up moving,

and I started third-grade there halfway through the school year. I didn’t have a lot of friends back

in Atascadero, a neighbor named Tate and two friends, Alyssa and Kale, a name I still think is

funny to this day, but regardless I was still nervous to make new ones, halfway through the

school year at that when everyone has already picked their friends and made their groups.

I did end up making new friends, two girls who lived in the apartment building we lived

in, the first apartment I ever lived in, Jennifer and Riley. For some reason that I don’t think I’ll

ever understand, Jennifer liked me and I liked Jennifer, and Riley liked me and I liked Riley, and

Jennifer and Riley tolerated each other, but we couldn’t all play together. They each wanted me

to themselves. They set up designated times when they would play with me so they wouldn’t

have to interact with each other. I also made a friend named Annabelle, who I could play with

whenever I wanted, even though she was sort of the queen bee of the third-grade class. I never

knew how ferocious third-grade politics was until I was a part of it. I remained in Clackamas

until fifth-grade, and then we moved to Rocklin. On my eleventh birthday. But that wasn’t the

main thing I was upset about, I was more upset that I was about to enter middle school in

Oregon, and then my parents decided we were moving to Rocklin, this time for my mom’s job,
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and I would have to go back to elementary school and do sixth-grade there. With this move, that

made my official elementary school count three.

My parents had planned on us living in Lincoln, and they found two houses that they

liked, but they wouldn’t accept us because they thought that my dad didn’t have a “real job.” He

was driving for Uber and Lyft at the time. That meant that they had to find something else, and

fast. My mom had already accepted the job. My aunt came up from Sunnyvale, California, and

stayed with me while they left me to go look at houses in Rocklin, the only town they found that

was in their budget. What they didn’t predict was how expensive houses were here. They found

an apartment complex, and with that began my sixth-grade year in Rocklin. Since we moved on

my birthday, September eighth, the school year had already begun. The school I was originally

supposed to go to, Parker Whitney, which is right next to my apartment complex, couldn’t take

me because they were at max capacity for kids. No other elementary school could take me either.

My mom was stressed, and she was calling the school district every day to try to get me into a

school. I however, was perfectly content laying on my air mattress in my new bedroom and

watching YouTube videos on my iPad mini. They finally found a school to send me to, albeit the

farthest school from my apartment which was still in the Rocklin school district, Sierra

Elementary, and my first day of school was on picture day. To make matters worse, my dad got

pulled over in the parking lot of the school on my first day. And he didn’t have his wallet on him.

Luckily he was able to talk his way out of it and the police officer took pity on him, so I went

into school, a little embarrassed, but nonetheless excited for the first day of my last year of

elementary school.
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I was worried about not making any friends, but when I walked up to my teacher and he

sent two girls from the class to give me a tour of the school, I became friends with them. They

also introduced me to their other friend, who was in another sixth-grade class, and we became a

group of four. I found out that one of them, who became my closest friend at the time, was new

to the school too, and that she had moved from San Jose but started school at the actual

beginning of the year. Little did I know, she and I would be boosted up to popularity as the other

two girls we had become friends with were very popular amongst the sixth-graders. Once

sixth-grade was over, it was time for us to go to middle school. Unfortunately for our group of

four, we found out that we were all going to be in different academies at our middle school,

Springview. I did find out that the friend I was closest with at the time’s academy had lunch at

the same time as mine, so we would still see each other then. Our other two friends’ academies’

had lunch together though, so I didn’t get to see them that much and they sort of broke off and

continued growing into popularity, while my other friend and I stayed together in the background

and made other friends of our own. Throughout seventh and eighth-grade, I made friends, lost

friends, and made friends again. The one constant was the girl I had met in sixth-grade. The

friends I ended up leaving middle school with were all going to Whitney, whereas I was set to go

to Rocklin, based on where I was set in the district. I was not going to let that happen though,

and I was not going to lose all my friends again. I submitted a transfer form, and to Whitney, I

went.

I remained with my middle school friend group throughout the first three years of high

school, with the addition of certain people. As for this year, senior year, our friend group has

kind of broken apart, and I am left with only a couple of my original middle school friends, but
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with the incorporation of a lot of new ones. As for the girl I was closest with since sixth-grade,

certain situations caused us to grow apart and we are no longer friends. I’m not sad about it

though, as throughout our years together I’ve learned a lot, and I’m sure she has too, and we’ve

both grown as people. I’m happy with where I am now, and I enjoy the friend group I’m in. And

even though I know that most of us will split up once we all go off to college, I am content.

Finally, after all these years, I feel like I’ve found a sense of belonging. Not with a certain friend

group, or at a certain school, but within myself. Knowing your place doesn’t have to mean

knowing your place in the world, or society, but it could mean knowing your place in yourself. I

know now that a sense of belonging doesn’t have to be dependent on others, and that I can have a

happy life knowing that I’ve taken care of myself. That is my sense of belonging.