I can't do this alone
It turns out, I need people
I’ve convinced myself at various points in my life that I don’t need people. I was the youngest of five kids and there were long periods when my siblings lived out of the house. Plus my Dad’s frequent travel and my mum’s frequent drinking meant large bouts of being alone with my dogs. I would find connections in my imagination through my writing and books.
I still craved relationship. My diaries at the time tell me so, but I struggled to find people I truly connected with at my private Episcopalian school and I wasn’t involved in any after school activities, so large chunks of my young life were spent in painful isolation. I just wanted the cute boy to look at me or the “cool girl” to invite me to her party. It often didn’t happen and when it did, it was so ephemeral, that the heartbreak of its ending made me wish it had never happened at all.
I have always had fierce individual friendships. One best friend who would become a life line, but there was always strife (as with any relationship, I’m learning!) and when we would inevitably fight, I would be right back where I started–alone in my room pecking away at my computer.
High school blew the lid off of what I thought was my lonesome destiny. I formed a large, tight friend group, many of whom I am still deeply connected with, and my bedroom went from being echoey and empty, to smoke-filled and loud. I spent every waking moment with my friends and boyfriends. Getting grounded was the absolute worst punishment my parents could bestow, because it ripped me away from my community and put me right back into my small self, alone in my room, pining.
I stayed social in college and my early 20’s as I tried to find my way in this world. I formed cliques in the yoga world and loved attending packed classes where I knew half the people and could swan through the crowd prior to the class like some kind of mayor. But after my mom died, my life became incredibly small and protected. I coldly pruned my friendship groups and stopped tending even to the ones I found important. I started saying “no” to invitations and outings. I eventually stopped practicing in rooms with other people. Citing distraction and other excuses. By the time my husband met me, my life was so small that I almost didn’t go on a date with him, twice.
And then he and I isolated together, as you do, when you’re a new couple. He became my everything and though we would sometimes leave the house to see other people, we were in our own little world. We convinced ourselves we didn’t even really like going out, so we stayed in every weekend and I would hit the San Francisco pavement’s hard for work during the week, then see the city from our living room on the weekends. I had some new friendships budding, but I still turned down most offers to attend group events that weren't work-related. “I’m an introvert,” I would say. “Keep me safe,” my heart would say.
I got pregnant and everything began to shift. First we had the loss. It was my worst fear realized, but where in the past I would lean entirely on my husband or hide in my room by myself, something was ignited in me where I knew I wouldn’t be able to get through this miscarriage without community. I called everyone I knew who had ever had a loss. I put out a flare gun on social media and though I had rejected them or been out of touch, people came. I healed in the virtual arms of the many women who had come before me and thanked the universe for social media and the ability to reach out without leaving my couch.
I didn’t plan to be isolated when we had my first son, Jonah. I had just reemerged from my cocoon and was reaching out to new moms. I was going to baby and me group and saying ‘yes’ to outings, but covid hit and the world shut down and humans seemed dangerous again. My heart felt vindicated. “We love being home alone with the new baby,” my husband and I would tell people. But my smile was forced and I had this nagging feeling in the pit of my abdomen that I forgot something.
I had forgotten friendship.
We moved to Marin deep in the pandemic along with a number of other families. We’d all wave and yell across the street from one another in our masks but thankfully these families quickly became friends and I found myself craving to go outside and kibitz. I started saying ‘yes’ to more and more social invitations and organizing connection opportunities myself. “This is a bad idea,” my heart told me, “You always get hurt.” But I kept going, locally, then globally. I started to reach out to people across the continent to form connections. I started interviewing people and when my book came out, I purposefully designed a tour that would involve panels of people.
In the past four months since The Yoga of Parenting came out, I’ve had the privilege to gather and be in connection with some incredible people and I can’t deny it any longer: Community fuels me. I need to be in connection and in circle. Yes, I do get drained when interactions are based on small talk, but put me in a group of women sharing their deepest, darkest thoughts, fears, and desires, and I feel incredibly full.
I cannot do this alone.
I cannot do this without you.
Thank you.
l o v e l y. tis true. we need each other.