I was six years old. I sat backstage after my dance recital number, wearing my tap shoes and pink polka-dotted outfit, my hair in a bun and the taste of my mom’s Esteé Lauder lipstick in my mouth. A backstage assistant came in to the room to take us out for the finale. She read a list of names—I watched my classmates line up, one by one—but I never heard my name. My eyes filled with tears as I realized I wasn’t going to be called at all. I watched quietly as the line of pink-polka-dotted girls in tap shoes shuffled their way out the door and onto the stage. I waited, and waited, and waited, (in my hazy memory, I was alone, but I’m guessing they didn’t leave a six-year old alone backstage) and after a long time, my mom came backstage. “Natalie! There you are! Why didn’t you go out for the finale?!?” My quiet tears turned into wails. “They didn’t call my name!” I can still remember the way my chest felt as the sobs came faster and faster, and I could barely catch a breath. She asked me why I didn’t just follow the rest of the class, but I couldn’t explain. All I knew was that my name was not called and so I didn’t get in line.
As an adult, I look back and wonder how that backstage assistant managed to completely miss that I didn’t get in line with all the other girls in the matching costume. But honestly, I don’t wonder why I didn’t get in line. I didn’t hear my name, (though she may very well have called it!) and I believed that only the people whose names were called were invited, and I was most certainly not about to walk up to the list-holder and ask if perhaps she had made a mistake. I didn’t take into account that I was wearing the same outfit, or that I had just spent months in a dance class with all of them, or any of the other signs: I waited for my name, and when I didn’t hear it, I considered myself uninvited.
I’m no longer six years old, but I still want to hear my name. There’s a list called “worthy of love and belonging” and I desperately want to be on it. Some days I don’t hear my name, and I forget to look down and realize I match all the other people on the list—we may not be wearing pink polka dots, but we’re all human. Today I’m not going to forget. Today, I’m getting in line, because I’m on that list. I’m human, and that’s who’s worthy of love and belonging.