philosophy, life
I’m starting to ask a new question: When do I need community?
All my adult life I’ve been searching for community. When I say community, I mean a place and a group of people who live there where I feel like I belong and I receive (and can give) emotional support and intimacy. I’ve tried a bunch of places, a bunch of structured communities, and more informal cliques. I had a wonderful, tight-knit group of friends in high school that I still think of fondly. I had several romantic relationships where I felt seen and understood. I’ve had roommates and besties over the years that I adore. I’ve had places that I’ve loved living, at least some parts of it. Nothing ever felt perfect. Things always eventually changed. I was forced to move for life circumstance or got the itch to up and leave for one reason or another—something not fitting quite right and squeezing me too hard into a shape I just don’t fit.
I kept asking myself: where do I fit?
But it was the wrong question, I think. What I need to start recognizing is when do I need the community and companionship of other human beings, because I think that might better help me find balance in life.
The reality is that I don’t need, or even want, to be around other human beings all the time. I think that’s just something I need to accept about myself. I naturally crave silence, being out of doors with no one around for miles, the sounds of birds and wind and not the sounds of cars and music.
I find my family relationships and my close friendships really meaningful, and they’re relationships I want to keep building, but I think I’m generally a solitary person. I feel pretty aloof in social situations, and even sometimes around the people I love.
I think part of the difficulty of figuring out this balance is that I’m also a mom, and because of that I need extra emotional support. I also have to work for a living, and I have required schooling, and administrative tasks for my writing work that I loathe, and insurance telephone trees to navigate, and afternoon commuter traffic, and a million other things about life that I find frustrating or soul-draining. I don’t have enough inner-strength to deal with all these things. I need the emotional support of others or solitude that feels restorative instead of lonely. Taking a hike on a beautiful mountain feels restorative. Moping at home alone procrastinating the things I’m supposed to be doing does not. Spending an evening with a close friend or partner feels restorative. Going to an event full of people whose conversations never dip further than a quarter inch into the soil of their beings does not.
In this stage of life, I’ve been pretty needy. But I won’t always be. At some point, I won’t have so many pressures and demands on me (eg. parenting and traditional 40 hr/week work) and will have more time for restorative, contemplative practices. Also more time for social interactions that feel more genuine and where I can give more than take.
I’ve been out of work for about three months and I have had all the time in the world for restorative practices. I find myself more and more pulling away from other people in a way that feels really positive for me, in that I’m not relying on others to meet my own emotional needs. I’m able to meet all of them myself. Spending time connecting with people I love feels more like a special treat than a necessary breath of air gasped from beneath a sea of responsibilities and a need to commiserate and not feel alone in my suffering.
I will still need, and will always enjoy, companionship, laughter, and shared fun with my loved ones. I’m so lucky to have them in my life. But I hope in the future I will have a better balance of intentionally planning those outings and interactions instead of constantly grasping for any amount of lift from the people around me because I feel completely depleted by normal life.