From Isolation To Community

Winter 2018 is a beast. It’s the second half of March and we are still huddled indoors with snow flying outside most days. I don’t know if it is because of the cold, dark weather, or if it is some mid-thirties hormonal swing, but I have been completely anti-social all winter.

It’s been bad. Some weeks I cancelled all extra activities so I wouldn’t have to leave my house; other times I forced myself out to church, to my kids’ swim lessons, or even the grocery store.

On top of never wanting to leave the house, my children have been sick much more this winter than usual. My five year old son went from being a ‘mild, intermittent’ asthmatic to a ‘moderate persistent’ asthmatic, which just means that he wheezes a lot, and when he gets better, he only stays off his albuterol for a week or two before he gets sick again.

These two things combined means that I have been alone a lot this winter. Oh, not alone-alone, my family is with me, of course, but I have not had much regular human interaction with people outside my family for several months now. And you know what? That anti-social feeling has morphed into an isolated feeling. I think, “Do people even care that I haven’t been at church? Do they even notice?”

Then the emotions sweep in with all the depressing thoughts.

• “Everyone else has friends. What’s wrong with me that I don’t have very many people close to me?”
• “No one really cares about me.”
• “I want to move someplace far away. Maybe it will be better there.”

I share these thoughts without shame because I have found recently that I AM NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO THINKS THESE THINGS! If I asked who feels isolated sometimes, I think just about everyone I know would say “Me!”

Honestly, I think most women struggle with isolation. We all live in houses where we pull in, shut the garage door, and are alone. Then we run to the grocery store or the library or the daughter’s violin lesson or a shift at work and we smile at people and say, ‘How are you?’ and then go back to our private, lonely lives.

Isolation is not limited to busy moms. I hear it from single women who feel cut off from other people. I hear it from married women who have no children. I hear it from other mothers of young children, older children, grown children. We all feel isolated!

We all like to stick an excuse to it:

• “If only I had children I could connect to other moms.”
• “If only I didn’t have children, I would have time to go out with other women.”
• “If only I had a husband, I could make relationships with other couples.”

But in reality, we all struggle with isolation. I don’t have the answers to why our society is this way. I don’t know how to instigate great societal change that will lead to vibrant, close-knit communities in our lifetimes. But I do know how I can change my own sense of isolation into a feeling of community.

I can reach out to others. 

If other women are also looking for friends, then it only takes one of you to reach out and begin to develop a relationship.

Be warned: relationships are hard. Relationships are messy, and time-consuming, and sometimes even painful. But relationships are worth it!

This past month I have taken several simple steps to start building my community.

1. I have purposely attended every church service possible except when my children’s illnesses kept me home. What better place to build relationships than with people who value the same things we do? Who worship our God with us every week?
2. I have purposely done my best to make every one of my children’s classes and – gasp – talk to the other moms! It’s tempting to hide behind my phone, but Facebook does NOT build true relationships.
3. I have tried to pick one or two women to reach out to specifically. I can’t build a deep friendship with everyone at once, but I can send a card in the mail to a friend. I can send a quick text saying “How are you doing today?” I can go up to an older woman and say, “Thank you for being a such a great example of loving wife. Can I come over and visit sometime and learn from you?”
4. I have invited people over to my home for dinner and fellowship.

Now, number four is a tough one for me! I am far from the world’s best housekeeper. In fact, I may not even be in the top fifty percent. So when I invited a family to come over for dinner this past Saturday, I knew that meant spending my entire Saturday grocery shopping, cooking, and ‘straightening things up’ – in other words, doing all the housework tasks I should have been doing for a long time!

My house was still far from perfect when our friends arrived. And I am okay with that. I don’t want to be friends with people who expect perfection. In fact, I don’t want to be friends with perfect people! That would be way too depressing. I just want to be myself and slowly, bit by bit, begin to invest in other people’s lives and let them invest in mine.

On Saturday, I held my friend’s adorable baby while my friend finished her dinner. You moms of newborns know how nice it is to eat in peace, and you moms of older kids know how nice it is to hold a little baby! Community was built in that moment.

Our husbands talked about their jobs. They both work in hospitals, so they have a lot in common. Through their conversation, community was built.

Our children ran and screamed and played and hula-hooped. Community was built.

Our friendship is still in the beginning stages. We haven’t yet gotten to the point where she would feel comfortable to call and say ‘I need help right now!’ And I am not there yet either. But if we consistently keep working on it, hopefully one day we will reach that point.

If you are feeling isolated, be encouraged. You can build community. It just takes time, patience, and consistency.

And if you live near me, give me a call or a text. I would love to be your friend.