As our 1 yr wedding anniversary rapidly approaches, reflections over this past year have come to mind. Our celebration was an amazing testament of our relationship, family and journey. All things considered, we have had a great first year of marriage. No one spent a night on the couch; we made it through 14 months of unemployment; made four international trips; survived the riots of Baltimore; moved to a new city; and learned, laughed, loved and cried along the way.
One of our greatest struggles this last year has been loneliness. Despite having each other and embarking on this new journey, we both experienced loneliness like never before. Moving back to the United States for me and the first time for the husband has been one of our biggest, most painful adjustment. Adjusting our expectations of people, transportation systems, family, church and work life has been at times overwhelming.
We came from a microcosm of community life. Whether you like each other or not, living life as an expat in a foreign country automatically creates community. You usually share at least one common language, educational background, food preferences and societal norms. When in a place where you are the minority, you cling to each other if for nothing else than comfort in similar-ness.
Stepping into a country as large as the U.S., it is quite easy to feel overwhelmed and lost in the shuffle. It feels like every one else has their space, their friends, their life and their busy-ness. It takes a strong concerted effort to break through that, which sometimes I must admit we have lost motivation for.
This last year, we have searched and feel we still come up short. For fifteen months we attended the same church. After fighting to find a place, we moved on only to realize that it is hard to fit in anywhere. We might just be looking for something that doesn't exist. A natural place where you think you can build community has been disappointing. We felt lost in a sea of people who have their own stuff going on.
Aside from that social avenue, we have gone to meetup.com events, invited neighbors for happy hour, reached out to co-workers for weekend rendezvous and a plethora of other activities. Our experience has always been that of going on a fun first date but yet you never get that call back for a second.
The most interesting part of all of this is that most everyone we have come in contact with is lonely. It seems as though we are surrounded by lonely people. We hear the same story on those first date encounters - "making friends post-college is difficult." Initially we saw a rise in human interaction after getting a dog. Now it feels like we need to have a kid so we can piggy back off their friendships to meet the parents.
All that to say, we are not friendless. We have some amazing friends and family. Unfortunately, we find that the majority of them live far away. We wish for days gone by when your best friend lived down the street. The days when you eat your peanut butter sandwich on the front porch, play for hours on the swing and bury each other in the piles of leaves. The days when making friends was merely as simple as two human beings in the same place at the same time -- that was reason enough to be friends.
We are still hopeful that as our community grows and strengthens, we can continue to share life in meaningful ways. Of course we will never be completely lonely, we have each other and that is the beauty this marriage has taught us thus far.
No comments:
Post a Comment