No Simple Circumstances

That’s what they always say when it comes to making friends, as if it is as easy of a task as breathing. Find community and friendship will follow. But as you get older, as you get farther and farther away from the sort of environments that fuel community by circumstance (school, sports, clubs), simply “finding” community can feel like a Herculean task. That was certainly the case for me. My 20s were a complicated time, one that I can divide into different eras. There was my “We’re in a Recession So You’ve Moved Home” era and my “Crying on the Dance Floor” era. There was my “Tragic Romance” era and my “All Work, No Play” era. But none were as exciting as my “Making My Own Community” era. And it took a lot of work. Beginning in the few months after my “Tragic Romance” era, this time period was one of my own making. Examining my life after the heartbreak, after the confusion, I realized the community I needed was nowhere to be found and would need to be created from the ground up. There were no easy connections, no simple circumstances. I lived alone and was a freelance journalist. My days were largely spent working in coffee shops or co-working spaces where I mostly kept to myself, with my head down and my oversized headphones blocking out the noise of the world. But I knew people. I had lived many lives in those previous eras, picking up acquaintances during each one. And I had met them everyday and from all walks of life. That’s the benefit of being a culture journalist, covering areas like music and visual arts and ballet. I met incredible, inspirational, hilarious, kind and life-altering people. But circumstance (and my own laziness) meant our socialization was often just online or in passing at events.

Examining my life after the heartbreak, after the confusion, I realized the community I needed was nowhere to be found and would need to be created from the ground up.

Here was my chance to do things differently. The thing about friendship is that it takes real effort. It takes vulnerability. You have to not only put yourself out there, but face rejection. It’s different from dating, which has rejection built into its very concept. We expect friendship to hurt less, to be easier, to be more fluid in its construction. And while that can be the case sometimes, if you are looking for something real and true and sustainable, it can take just as much effort and heartbreak and frustration as anything else worth value in your life. So I connected to these people, online and off. And I connected them to each other. And they connected each other to different friends and acquaintances, too. It was not always perfect or easy. More often than not, I felt awkward. Friendship of intention has greater stakes than friendship of circumstance. But then, we turned a corner. Facebook comments became potluck brunches and group dinners. Back-and-forth emails became collaborations and wellness retreats. Each new connection revealed a new layer of yearning for something of substance, of friendship born and cultivated. Years later, I am reminded of that time and the gifts it has given me as I continue to embark on my new “Spiritual and Physical Healing” era: That we are capable of making the lives we want for ourselves. That effort can be rewarded with joy. That deep, rich and powerful connection is not impossible.