Yesterday was the beginning of South Asian History Month

photo credit : @stalbansmuseums

Our local museum has co-curated (with community members) a range of activities to accompany a magnificent exhibition to show, not only the diversity of our local community but also to demonstrate how that community has shaped the local landscape, culturally, politically and economically across the ages.

I feel a small pride in contributing a few items to the displays - thanks to @stuffandnonstuff . I also feel a level of gratification to have connected with a few other Asian women whose lives have echoes of parts of my own. Thank you for including me in your group @print_makerlady @preet.cox @dinsyngz @smahamb . But I realise that my greater pride lies in this City (St Albans) being the place where I reconnected with my sense of belonging.

Now the thing is, I had never previously felt a sense of belonging here in the UK. But I was also aware that I did not feel as though I belonged in India, my birth country. I understood why this was – I had been uprooted from my home country at the age of 7, when a child understands very little, but is still in their formative years. The grief of leaving home had lasted my whole life so far but India had changed. Various experiences had left me feeling cautious around people and racism at school meant that I felt unaccepted in England too.

So wherever I was, I felt I did not belong.

I’m not sure what changed but after living for nearly a decade in St Albans, I realised it felt like home. I felt safe here and I had somehow developed friends and a community here.  

Yes it was also where I had become quite unwell and it was here that I received my unwelcome diagnosis. But it still was the first place that felt I could call home. So now to be part of this exhibition in a tiny way, and to see that this exhibition values our community enough to have the items on display for 4 months, is a further affirmation of that sense of home. To then find a small tribe of women who identify at least in part with my experiences, feels very validating.

So that is my brief story about my sense of home. But I feel it plays a component in my remaining reasonably well as it is part of what feeds my Well of Hope. The creativity, companionship, the being seen in many of my facets, feeds into that sense of hope, validity and belonging.

Belonging helps us feel rooted, whether others are around for us or not. Belonging is a facet of our identity.

Hope is the key factor if we are to continue to have any sense of wellbeing, or to continue functioning in the world.

But I am curious to know what state your Sense of Belonging is, and how your Well of Hope is in. Do you have a sense of belonging? Have you still got Hope? Do you need help to replenish either of these? Do get in touch if you need a little help.

#Belonging #Hope #Community #LongTermHealthConditions #SenseOfHome