I have love, support, and acceptance from myself and the people around me

Every year the same table gets booked and your name goes on it without anybody checking first. Nobody deliberates. You are on the list the way the salt is on the table.

Being counted in by default is what acceptance looks like from the outside. It is undramatic and nearly impossible to notice, because the alternative — having to be justified each time — never happens.

The version you owe yourself lags well behind. Most people can be included in a booking for a decade and still, privately, run the audit.

Notice one place this week where you were assumed rather than chosen. That is a fact about you as much as about them.