February 2024
Am I the only one who looks around in amazement (and maybe with some healthy skepticism) at life as it is, wondering “Is this who I am? How did I get so blessed?” (And the skepticism chiming in “Are you gonna be able to make this last?”)
I have an insane amount of and insanely wonderful people in my life.
Sometimes I wonder if I am dreaming.
As a child, connection, community and friendship were absent. A big part of this was due to location and familial circumstances. When you only have so many people physically living around you at any given time, options are limited. Even as I moved into my young adult years, moving to bigger cities and expanding my horizons, I still kept my circle tight.
When the stuff hit the fan (or as it was hitting the fan) in my early thirties, I reached out to others without even realizing what I was doing. I found I had created a support system for myself. I was similarly surprised and feeling blessed that I had what people called friendships, acquaintances, relationships and belonged to not just one but two or three communities.
It was the first time I ever really felt I belonged. I was 35 years old. And I felt like I had finally grown up.
A few years later though, I was unraveling. I wasn’t able to fit into those communities, those friendships and relationships as I once did. I was trying. Oh, I was trying! I loved them (the people) but the views that we had all once shared – I no longer shared. And felt alone once again.
I wondered if it was better to have community and feel alone or to have not had the community (as when I was younger) and be alone. End result was still alone. I had failed at adulting.
So I figured I just had to try harder – you know, because that always works!
Of course it’s my fault! I changed. So I decided to push through. I knew I could go back to the way things were. Where I knew my role and place, felt like I belonged. Still, I continued to get more and more uncomfortable. My body was showing me major signs of exhaustion and stress (that I was ignoring with my usual “this is just your reality, nothing new here!” attitude.)
If a pandemic hadn’t come along, I don’t know what else would have happened. I actually think it prolonged my life by a few years.
I thought my chances of belonging and community were over. “I just can’t cut it” I told myself. “I don’t know how to ‘do’ relationships.” With no examples (healthy or otherwise) around me as a kid and then young adult, I figured that those years were a fluke. Ultimately, I was a failure.
I wasn’t a failure. I knew that, of course. But it was so hard not to feel that way.
Just like I hadn’t had an example of how to have relationships, I also hadn’t had any example of change and growth within relationships. Growth of moving in and out of a community, changing and growing personally, trying new things, taking breaks, coming back and up leveling or just fading out – these are all normal things that happen in relationships. These normal things are magnified, distorted, complicated and ignored because let’s face it, none of this is fun and the world is stupid complicated (and magnified, distorted and ignored in it’s own way.)
And ALL of this is navigated (usually) while feeling absolutely and completely alone.
There are days I think I came back out just fine, when I look around and think “How did I get these awesome wonderful people? These old and new relationships? These incredible experiences with these said people?”
And then there are days when the situation is exactly the same, yet I feel alone, wondering if I have to step away from great people once again because “I don’t fit.”
Congratulations – I’m human and normal. And I’d rather have community and be alone than be alone without it.
Only taken me 4 decades to stop THIS particular loop of madness.