I’ve thought about writing this post for a while now, but something about it made me hesitate. Maybe it’s that I don’t want to jinx myself or to look a gift horse in the mouth, or any number of cliche expressions. But I feel really happy lately… and I know it has a lot to do with the community we have around us, the wonderful friends we’ve made, the people who feel like family.
I guess I should backtrack a bit and tell you a bit more about myself and how “community” was mostly a foreign concept to me in my life. I’m an only child, an introvert with hermit tendencies, and diagnosed with general anxiety order, panic disorder, and depression. I’ve always been quiet, especially growing up with a “don’t speak until you’re spoken to” mother and a “don’t tell people your business” dad and my crippling anxiety and awkwardness. I just learned to keep to myself. My default for most of my adult life is to spend time in my bed with a book or my phone.
So obviously, making friends has ALWAYS been difficult for me. I’ve never been a friendship initiator. What normally happens is that I meet an extrovert who dismantles all of my excuses about why I can’t hang out and they just adopt me as their friend and don’t let me retreat into my shell. Or I meet really cool people on the internet because then I can hide (some) of my awkwardness, at least at first (Hi,
!). But left to my own devices, I’d probably never speak to anyone outside of my family because I don’t know how to “human” properly.And then I married an extrovert who has never met a stranger in his life. I call him our family ambassador because he goes out and meets people and 10 minutes later, he has their whole life story and they’re all sharing laughs and inside jokes. I just wasn’t born with that gene and I’m always in awe of him.
But I have him to thank for our amazing community we have now. He made friends with the people who live on our street and they became my friends and now I wonder how I ever got by without a community before. We have a group chat where we send funny memes all day or rant about the weird stuff that happens in our neighborhood. We get together for birthdays or just to shoot the breeze. We all gather in a different yard in the evenings and laugh till we cry (or a certain someone pees their pants). We even take trips together, something I never thought I’d do, but I loved it. We keep an eye on each other’s kids and we watch out for one another and it just feels like we won the friend lottery.
Each of us is unique with different personalities, but we all have the same sense of humor and the same values and we just click in a way that still amazes me. I’m grateful to God and the circumstances that brought us together and I have resolved to never be without a good community around me ever again. Our friends bring joy to our lives and it’s a wonderful feeling.
Living in a house on wheels means that people are always traveling around, so we might not all be neighbors forever, but I will cherish the time we do have with all of my heart.
P.S. Love you, CFM! You know who you are.
I love this! I too am an awkward introvert, as you know. Being in community has been a lifelong struggle for me. Sometimes I wonder if I will ever feel part of one again. This piece gives me hope! And I’m so thrilled for you. Soak it all in, my friend.
This makes me so happy to read. One, because you’re back in my inbox. And two, because I know what a big deal this is for you. Thank god for more people appreciating your special brand of weirdness 😉