Do you ever have moments where something you've never even considered before, something that's never crossed your mind all of a sudden races in like a freight train? And you find yourself wondering where that missing puzzle piece has been for days -> weeks -> years? That happened to me earlier this week. I'm going to talk about some things today that I haven't shared much in the past. Some friends, very close to me, have heard some (not all) of these thoughts and stories, but for the most part, it's new-to-you (heck, some of it is even new to me). Loneliness is something that still flirts with me from time to time. I have an amazing circle of friends and family. I'm super close to my son. I live with (and adore) my boyfriend. I've curated some really strong and vulnerable and supportive and beautiful friendships with my besties. I have not 1, not 2, but 3 businesses that allow me to connect with others on an incredible level. I create connection. I'm a hub for people...... and yet. I can't even remember what prompted this trip down memory lane. I just remember I was driving home from a meeting, reflecting on why I still struggle with loneliness sometimes, and my mind started to wander towards community in my younger years. Where did it exist? How did it exist? What was my personal experience with it? How had it changed? And a thought struck me like a lightning bolt traveling through the sky - Church and family were where I witnessed and experienced community. But when you recognize at a fairly young age that something in your church, in the religion you're brought up in, doesn't add up, AND you're the transitional character in your family, what happens to your sense of community?
To make things even more complicated (and nostalgic) I never really fit in at school. When I was in grade school all I cared about was recess & racing the fastest kids there (Carrie Egbert - you were the only one that could even come close to being any kind of competition). Or chasing down Aaron Smith in elementary school (because you ALWAYS chase down your crushes, amiright), a red head with a rat-tail who claimed his Dad was Kenny Rogers. Trisha Quinn and I were "besties" by default for the first few years - because we'd shared every single teacher for the first 6 years of school, lived right around the corner from each other, and it felt like my family mildly trusted that her family wouldn't expose me to too much sin (we were sooooo Baptist). That picture below? That's me. I'm cute, right? There are things about that picture that I know, that you couldn't possibly know from looking at it. Things like.....
My hair was cut shorter because I suffered from a quiet anxiety that I coped with by wrapping my hair around my finger, would get it knotted, and would yank that chunk of hair out of my head. Later that would prompt 80's style perms by my Grandma and a family friend to give my hair some texture in order to camouflage the bald/thinning spots. The other thing I did? I sucked my thumb. A lot. You can barely see the "damage" it caused now (my bottom two front teeth jut out just a bit, but have miraculously been pretty damn perfect up until now). All that hair pulling and thumb sucking happened at school too. And the person who most mercilessly badgered me about it was my second grade teacher, Mrs. Karen Coulson - a woman who ridicule me in front of the class, ostracize me from the others, and (on more than one occasion dumped my desk upside down (cause it was a "sty") and made me stay in during recess to pick it up - alone. When I was in middle school I had a few closer friends. But we never really did much outside of school (I can count all the sleepovers on one hand). Jessica Randall (my next door neighbor and future best friend), Missy Hunter, & Katie Kehoe were part of my middle school "crew". I can remember us sneaking to a corner of the playground to listen to dubbed mini-tapes at recess with them that blasted songs like "Paradise City" and "Cherry Pie" and feeling like a complete and utter badass (who would totally crumble if her grandparents ever knew she listened to AND enjoyed these kinds of songs). The only other person I even remotely associated with at school was Danny Kauffman (whose Dad would later be one of my bar-tending customers - small world), the kid who was always getting in trouble, but liked to do cool shit. I remember in 6th grade when we were lined up to go in for recess and he and I were fighting about something (we were "friends" because we challenged each other) and he said something I wasn't cool with (what, I don't remember). I took it too far and kicked him in the balls, at which point he kicked me in the crotch. Hard. It was right then and there that I determined "ball-kicking" was for emergency situations only.
High School - well, that was less than fun. This is where a lot of things that happened when I was younger, combined with the amazing side affects of physically, mentally, and emotionally "developing" as a teen really started to make things weird. I hung out with what I deemed the "anti-preps" in high school (we were like the "misfit toys"). I had no use for fitting in. I was smart, but didn't apply myself and skipped class in later years. I always felt like all the other girls had it all figured out and were completely put together. Tanesha Abel was the coolest girl in school (and I can say, she actually seemed like a pretty good human, plus she was gorgeous). I can still remember the time in 7th grade when she walked up to me and asked me what mascara I was wearing in front of the whole class (none - I was wearing none) and how she was shocked and impressed with my "beautiful lashes". That put me on cloud 9 for days. Later in high school I'd experience some bullying (pretty normal for your high school experience) - mostly people trying to make me take the blame for things when THEIR actions were disrupting the class (I'm supremely stubborn, and never caved, which meant a lot of circumstances for the class, but eventually they quit trying to pin things on me). Most of the other side eyes and nasty comments I got came from the girls older than me, whose boyfriends, ex-boyfriends, or brothers had vaguely shown some interest in me (believe me, I cared less AND was practically oblivious). And then there was the time where I innocently accepted a ride home from school with a boy (I was probably 15). It truly was innocent, but the look at the tongue lashing I got from my Grandma after he dropped me off in front of the house was enough to make me.... NEVER. WANT. TO. DO. THAT. AGAIN. Church....... well that's a whole 'nother set of stories. Over time 4 generations of our family attended the same church AND on both sides of my family (my grandfather's family AND my grandmother's). I tagged along with my grandparents to every church function you can imagine when I was younger - potlucks, prayer meeting, Sunday AND Wednesday service. Eventually I would also be involved in the youth group, date the preacher's son (it was SO cool that he was super cute AND younger than me), and join everything from the adult volleyball and softball leagues to the quiz team (anything to get as far away from home as I could). I had friends at church. Some closer than others.
These friends were definitely of the "grandparent approved" variety. Even so, I never felt like I quite fit in with them (Sarah Meyers, you were the exception here. I never felt like I was a charity case to you, like we "had to hang out" because our parents thought is was best. Thank you for your true kindness and friendship). Don't get me wrong. I feel like a lot of the connection with my peers was authentic AND my experiences always felt like maybe we wouldn't hang out if the elders hadn't arranged it. It was what you did because you were a "good" person, right? Help others less fortunate than yourself?
And the family experience - that's a whole lot to dive in to. But what I can say about that is how utterly fascinating AND confusing it is that we were raised around each other, beside each other, celebrated holidays and birthdays and everything else together, but fast forward to our adult years and that barely ever happens any more. How did things change so much? Why did they change?!?
What if........ church and family shaped my experience with connection and community - and at the same time, I didn't fit in because I had no desire to fit in. What then?
For as far back as I can remember I've been twice as stubborn as the day is long. And it wasn't until recently over a conversation with a friend (Shawn Cash, you-da-man!) that I realized........ I've had something all wrong for a while now. There are a lot of core values that really speak to me, but somehow I completely missed the fact that AUTONOMY was key to how I prefer to exist. Maaaaaan did that explain a lot when I took some to reflect on my past. And it especially explains my streak, nay, RIVER of stubbornness.
Once I realized THAT, there were 2 KEY LESSONS that started to frame out.
LESSON #1
I have a TON of resilience, and I'm okay with doing hard things (or doing things the hard WAY) because that was my "normal" growing up. There wasn't much that was easy, outside of somehow staying true to myself (and I am SO GRATEFUL for that piece because it doesn't seem to be the "norm"). Being your true self can be HARD, especially when you're a kid or a teenager. But having that experience strengthened my resolution to be myself, enhanced my authenticity, and definitely paved the way for my autonomy. Fast forward a couple decades and for reasons that previously evaded me, I've been solidly working on creating EASE in my life. It's incredibly important to me. And I've definitely done the work around KNOWING that things can be easy. I've navigated what's hard. I trust myself, the Universe, and my process for things to work in my favor. I have mega resilience. And I've curated an amazing circle that supports me, challenges me, cheer-leads me, and holds me, and I LET THEM (cause that's how it's supposed to work).
LESSON #2
When all the ways you experienced community in your your younger (formative) years resulted in either being the cast out OR intentionally removing yourself from those spaces, being able to create community for yourself can be incredibly elusive (until you understand the why behind that). When you're the disruptor, the rebel, the challenger, the transitional character, the forward thinker, the nomad, you're already in a space where who you are, what you do, and how you think can feel threatening to others. Not because you're doing anything malicious or intentionally hurtful, but because your ability to hold yourself accountable, hold yourself to another standard and TRUST who you are, LEAN INTO who you are probably means that 1 of 3 things is going to happen.
A) It will make people SUPER uncomfortable because seeing what's possible for someone else may challenge the hell out of how they define themselves, and they might double down on who they are instead of considering who they COULD be, resulting in a fairly difficult dynamic between the two of you moving forward.
B) It will make them super uncomfortable, but slowly they're realize that it's working for you, that it's "SAFE", that you;re not doing these things through comparison or judgment - you're doing them because they honor YOU. Once they realize that last part, it's possible they'll slowly start dipping their toe into a different way of thinking, a different way of being.
C) It makes them so uncomfortable, and challenges who they are and how they show up so much that they reject you (and the idea of change). "Who do you think you are?", "You think you're sooooo much better than everyone else", "You and your big ideas", "You just can't help yourself - you have to challenge EVERYTHING". And that's where the relationship, the friendship, the connection dissolves. And although it can be sad to lose people in this way, it's a necessary step in our growth (also, never say never - you don"t know what can shift when you stick to your boundaries, refuse to lower your standards, and truly lead by example).
So, we have the epiphanies and we have the lessons. Now what?!?
I was lonely a LOT growing up. Don't get me wrong, I was always surrounded by adults that accepted me and loved me for who I was (I think, a lot of them being older - my grandparents friends and peers- they had the wisdom of accepting and appreciating "belonging" vs. fitting in, but compliance was still strongly suggested, lol). But I never really felt like I fit in with my friends and my peers. I felt different. In a lot of ways I WAS different. And it took me along time to realize that was a blessing (not curse), and to own and accept and lean into who I am at my core.
I never had the "girlfriends you could tell your deep dark secrets". Me and my family kept our secrets tucked neatly away like they didn't exist. Arranging sleepovers or hangouts for staying at MY house was rarely done because our life was chaos, our house was embarrassing, and there were already too many mouths to feed. And arranging to go to someone else's house was never easy either - What I didn't understand at the time is how much stress could impact seeminlgly simple decisions like that, from an adults perspectie. I just know the ask was always met with a resistance that didn't make sense to me then.
You know what I think is beautiful despite, NO BECAUSE OF my lived experience? Because I learned how to belong to myself, because I KNOW that YOU are shaped by your own uniqueness, your own experiences, your own paradoxes, I lean into accepting you for exactly who you are - NOT who you need to be "for me". And the gift of belonging to ourselves first, then finding the spaces and faces that laign with that is the most beautiful thing to experience.
It may take some time to own who you are, to appreciate it, to accept it, to LOVE it. But you WILL figure it out if it's important enough to you. And, speaking from experience, chances are you won't just figure it out. You'll ace it.
- All My Love
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