Belonging and Reclaiming Peace in Tobago

The first thing I noticed when I arrived home was the heat. Not a polite warmth, but temperatures in the nineties, the kind that press against the skin and slow the body down. I have been here a week now, back in my ancestral home in Tobago, sitting outside with my notebook, trying to reclaim tranquillity.

There is a slight breeze moving through the yard. I can hear lambs bleating nearby and birdsong rising and falling around me. These sounds are ordinary, but they feel like medicine. They remind me that life continues without asking permission. They remind me that peace can return, even after a season of distress.

This is what I came home for. Not just rest, though I need that. Not just sunshine, though my bones welcome it. I came home to remember myself.

I came home after a summer in England that left me bruised in ways I did not expect.

The yard has become a place to breathe, listen and begin again.

The betrayal I did not see coming

I have lived long enough to know that harm does not always announce itself plainly. Sometimes it comes wrapped in politeness. Sometimes it arrives through people who believe they are being reasonable. Sometimes it happens in front of others, and everyone carries on as if nothing has happened.

That was how it felt.

I did not expect to be mentally, physically and emotionally abandoned whilst enduring an onslaught of ageism, ableism and racism. A triple whammy. I reacted by challenging what was happening. I would not allow myself to be pushed aside, disrespected or bullied.

At the time, I was not fully able to name the whole thing. I knew only this: I was not being treated well.

That knowing matters. The body knows before the language arrives. The spirit knows when it is being made small. The mind catches up later, when the heart has stopped racing and the room has gone quiet.

I am a 77-year-old disabled senior Black woman. Each part of that identity carries history. Each part affects how people see me, hear me, dismiss me, or decide what I can tolerate. On that day, those histories seemed to gather in one place.

All three people involved seemed unaware of what had just happened, except me. That is one of the loneliest parts of discrimination. You can be standing in the middle of it, feeling the full blow, while others act as if you are the problem for naming it.

Two lifetime friends retaliated rather than supported me when the incident was taking place. That is the wound I have been carrying. Not only the original harm, but the failure of those who knew me. The people I expected to recognise my distress did not stand with me. They stepped back.

There is a particular pain in being abandoned by people who know your story. Strangers may misunderstand you. Institutions may neglect you. But old friends carry memories. They know your battles, your humour, your history, your tenderness. When they fail to see you, the hurt cuts deeper.

The summer had moments of grace

It would be untrue to say the whole English summer was sorrow. It was warmer than usual for longer than usual, and much of it passed while I was trying to raise enough income to live. That struggle sat heavily on me. It took energy I wanted to give to writing, friendship, health and rest.

Still, there were three short breaks that held me together.

The first was with Karen in her cottage home in Hazelmere. We had a relaxing time with her people, and a morning in her health spa overlooking the countryside. Karen has a gift. She has a knack of making me feel special without fuss, as if care is the most natural thing in the world. I returned to Folkestone feeling rejuvenated and loved.

That kind of friendship is not loud. It does not need to perform itself. It simply makes room for you.

The second break was in Derbyshire with a reunion group of four sister friends. Years ago, we had done serious anti-oppression training together. That kind of work creates bonds of a particular kind. You see each other thinking, learning, being challenged, being changed. You witness one another grappling with the world and with yourselves.

The train journey through the Pennines was exhilarating. There is something about travelling by train through that stretch of land, watching the hills rise and fall, feeling the body carried through distance. It gave me a sense of movement when much of my life had felt stuck.

When we gathered, we ate a lot, laughed a lot and shared a lot. We caught up on careers, retirement, families and health. We are all seniors now. Three of the group have survived major illness. Our host lives with her husband, who is challenged by Motor neurone disease. The tenderness in that home was not sentimental. It was practical, daily and real.

We walked through fields, taking care with our steps and our pace. There were cows nearby, and that wide Derbyshire air that makes conversation slow down. In those moments, I felt the strength of women who have lived, worked, struggled and kept loving.

Some journeys restore movement to parts of us that have felt stuck.

When good moments sit beside harm

One of the strange things about a difficult season is that beauty and betrayal can exist side by side. A spa morning can be real. Laughter with sister friends can be real. So can abandonment. So can the shock of not being protected.

I have had to resist the pressure to make the story simple.

If I say I was hurt, I am not denying the kindness I received elsewhere. If I say I was betrayed, I am not refusing gratitude. Life at this age has taught me that truth often comes layered. A summer can nourish and deplete you. A friendship can hold history and still fail you in the present. A person can love you and still not have the courage, awareness or humility to stand beside you when it matters.

That is painful to admit.

I also know that naming harm can make other people uncomfortable. They may prefer softer words. Misunderstanding. Tension. Sensitivity. A difficult moment. But those words can smooth over what should be faced.

Ageism tells older people to be quiet, grateful and manageable.

Ableism treats disabled people as inconvenient, excessive or less credible.

Racism asks Black women to absorb disrespect, then punishes us when we resist.

When these forces combine, the impact is not abstract. It affects the body. It affects breathing. It affects sleep. It affects whether you feel safe in a room. It affects whether you trust your own friends.

I challenged what happened because something in me refused to collapse. I did not do it perfectly. Why would I? People under pressure rarely produce neat responses. But I know I was defending my dignity.

That matters.

There is a difference between making a fuss and refusing to disappear.

For much of my life, I have had to read rooms quickly. I have had to measure risk, tone, silence and threat. Many Black women know this skill. Many disabled people know it too. Many older people learn it when others start speaking over them, about them, or around them.

By the time you reach 77, you have survived enough to know that peace without dignity is not peace. It is compliance.

Tobago is helping me hear myself again

Now I am in Tobago, and the pace is different. I am home, and settling myself in. That phrase feels right: settling myself. Not just unpacking bags, but gathering the scattered parts of me and placing them gently back inside my own life.

The heat is not easy, but it changes my rhythm. I rise, rest, listen, write. I sit outside and let the sounds reach me. Lambs. Birds. Breeze. Distant voices. The ordinary music of the village.

There is memory in this place. My ancestral home holds more than walls and land. It holds people who came before me, people who endured, planted, cooked, prayed, argued, laughed and made life possible. Being here reminds me that I did not begin with the recent hurt. I come from somewhere deeper.

That matters when betrayal shakes your sense of belonging.

In England, I often had to work at being seen. Here, I am not romanticising anything. Home has its own complications. Villages carry histories too. People remember, talk, assume and sometimes judge. But there is also recognition. There are names. There are family lines. There are people who know where you belong, even if life has taken you away for long stretches.

Overcoming isolation is now part of my work. Rekindling friendships and rebuilding a support network within the village is not just social. It is practical. It is emotional. It is also a safety network.

At this stage of life, independence cannot mean doing everything alone. That version of independence is too harsh. I need people who notice if I have not been seen. I need people who will check in. I need people who understand that disability and ageing require community, not pity.

Writing outside is helping the hurt become language.

Rebuilding a safety network is a form of wisdom

When I was younger, I might have called it friendship and left it there. Now I use the words support network and safety network with intention.

A safety network is made from small, repeated acts. Someone who calls. Someone who can help with transport. Someone who knows a trusted neighbour. Someone who will listen without rushing to defend the person who hurt you. Someone who understands that care is not control.

I am thinking carefully about what I need now. Not in a way that makes me feel weak, but in a way that honours reality.

I need:

• People who respect my age without treating me as incapable

• People who understand disability without reducing me to it

• People who respect my Black womanhood without expecting endless strength

• People who can sit with discomfort when I name harm

• People who know the difference between support and retaliation

  
  

That last one is important. When a person is already under attack, the role of a friend is not to correct their tone before checking their safety. It is not to treat their resistance as the main issue. It is not to make peace at the expense of the person being harmed.

Support begins with recognition.

A simple sentence can change everything: “I saw what happened, and I am with you.”

I did not receive that when I needed it. I am grieving that absence.

What betrayal teaches, even when we do not want the lesson

I would rather have learnt nothing from this. I would rather have had the support. I would rather be writing only about birdsong, lambs, heat and the sweetness of coming home.

But betrayal has lessons, even when they arrive unwanted.

It has taught me to trust the first signal in my body. That small tightening, that inner alarm, that sense that something is not right. I do not need to wait for a committee to confirm my experience.

It has taught me that long friendship does not cancel present harm. History matters, but it cannot be used as a shield against accountability.

It has taught me that I still have fight in me. Not the fight that burns everything down, but the fight that says, I am here, I matter, and I will not be bullied into silence.

It has also taught me that rest is not a luxury after harm. Rest is part of repair. So is writing. So is sitting outside in the heat, listening to life continue.

I am not ready to decide what happens with every relationship. Some things need time. Some conversations may come. Some may not. What I know is that I cannot abandon myself in order to keep other people comfortable.

That is the old bargain, and I am no longer willing to pay it.

Belonging is rebuilt through familiar paths and trusted people.

Returning to peace without pretending

Peace is often spoken about as if it requires forgetting. I do not believe that. Forgetting can be another form of self-abandonment. My peace must be honest, or it will not hold.

So I am practising a different kind of peace.

I am allowing myself to remember clearly without living inside the wound all day. I am allowing gratitude for Karen, for Derbyshire, for sister friends, for the Pennines, for food and laughter. I am allowing anger about what happened. I am allowing sadness about the friends who retaliated. I am allowing the relief of being home.

All of it belongs.

The breeze is still moving as I write. The afternoon heat is heavy, but not hostile. Birds are busy in the trees. Somewhere nearby, lambs call out and are answered.

That sound touches me. A call and an answer. A reminder that living beings need response.

Perhaps that is what I am seeking now, in this ancestral place. Not rescue. Not pity. A response. Recognition. The steady presence of people who understand that a senior disabled Black woman should not have to fight alone to be treated with dignity.

I am home now. I am writing again. I am rebuilding my circle carefully, one conversation, one visit, one remembered name at a time.

The betrayal was real, but it is not the whole story. Belonging is real too. So is the peace I am reclaiming, breath by breath, in the heat and birdsong of Tobago.