This week, Mary Ann and I drove from Oklahoma City to the Boulder area to attend a wedding. A young woman Mary Ann once cared for as a nanny is getting married, and we decided to turn the trip into a week-long visit with friends.
We’ve stayed with these friends many times over the years. I’ve known her since fifth grade. Not middle school. Not high school. Fifth grade.
As I woke up one morning, a thought appeared that caught me completely off guard.
I was comfortable.
Not physically comfortable, though I certainly was. Not merely comfortable because the house is beautiful, though it is. Not because I was on vacation or away from responsibilities. I was comfortable in every possible way.
For someone who can occasionally become anxious when away from home, this realization felt unusual. My mind immediately started searching for comparisons. Surely there must be other places that feel this way. Other homes where I could arrive, settle in, and simply exist without friction.
I couldn’t think of one.
Not family. Not other friends. Not anywhere that immediately came to mind.
And that realization felt significant.
I’ve always enjoyed being here. I’ve always looked forward to these visits. But somehow I had never stopped long enough to recognize what was actually happening. This place feels like home. Not my home. Their home. Yet somehow, in a way that’s difficult to explain, also mine.
The older I get, the more I realize there is a difference between being welcomed and belonging.
Many people are generous hosts. They offer a room, make dinner, ask if you need anything, and genuinely want you to feel comfortable. Hospitality is a beautiful thing, and I’ve been fortunate to experience it many times throughout my life. But belonging is something else entirely.
Belonging is when you stop feeling like a guest. It’s when you don’t feel obligated to perform gratitude every moment you’re there. It’s when you stop wondering whether you’re in the way. It’s when your presence feels as natural to the environment as everyone else’s. You aren’t being accommodated; you’re simply part of the rhythm. You arrive and exhale. You don’t have to become anything. You simply are.
I think that’s what I felt that morning.
Over the past year, I’ve written quite a bit about change. About becoming. About the strange experience of looking back across your life and seeing a procession of former selves standing behind you like ghosts. Different beliefs. Different priorities. Different identities. Versions of yourself that once felt permanent but eventually became stepping stones to someone new.
I’ve never experienced myself as a fixed thing. If anything, life has felt like a long series of renovations. Some planned, some forced, some welcomed, some resisted. Yet through all of those changes, some relationships have endured.
Not because they remained frozen in time, but because they evolved too.
I think that’s the hidden beauty of long friendships. We often assume their value comes from shared history: the memories, the stories, the inside jokes that nobody else understands. Those things matter, but I suspect their deeper value lies elsewhere.
The best friendships provide continuity without requiring conformity. They don’t demand that you remain who you were when they first met you. They don’t require allegiance to an outdated version of yourself. Instead, they somehow make room for your becoming. They update the mirror.
The person these friends met in fifth grade no longer exists. The person I knew in fifth grade doesn’t exist either. Yet somehow the relationship remains. Not despite the changes, but because it was flexible enough to accommodate them.
And now there is another layer.
Their daughter and our daughter are only a few months apart in age. Watching Jettie run around with someone she adores inside a friendship that began decades before either of them were born feels oddly profound. Most relationships don’t get the chance to stretch across that much time. Most don’t survive the many deaths and rebirths that life demands. This one has.
As I sat with all of this, another thought surfaced. Perhaps one of life’s greatest gifts isn’t finding people who love you. It’s finding people around whom you can completely relax. People who don’t require explanation. People who don’t require performance. People who don’t require a particular version of you. People who simply make room.
In a world that often feels transactional, conditional, and hurried, that kind of belonging feels almost sacred.
Maybe that’s why the realization arrived so quietly. There was no dramatic moment. No profound conversation. No life-changing event. Just a simple awareness upon waking: I am completely comfortable here.
The more I’ve reflected on it, the more I’ve come to believe that comfort wasn’t really what I was feeling. What I was feeling was acceptance. Not acceptance of an idea, but acceptance of a person. The kind that says, consciously or unconsciously, “You don’t need to be anyone other than who you are.”
The older I get, the more precious that feels.
What I realized that morning wasn’t something new about my friends. It was something old that I had finally noticed. For decades, they have been holding open a space where I could arrive exactly as I am. They have welcomed every version of me without demanding that I remain any of them.
And perhaps that is what belonging really is.
Not being known for who you were. Not being tolerated for who you are. But being given the freedom to become, while knowing there will always be a place for you to return. For that, I am grateful beyond words.