Roaming These Streets Alone

Until I stumbled across a community of writers who took my hand and gave me something to hold on to

Community:

a group of people who live in the same area (such as city, town, or neighborhood)

a group o people who have the same interests, religion, race etc

-Definition provided by Merriam-Webster

Where is my community? By that definition, my neighbors are my community, but I hardly speak to them. By that definition, black people are my community, but that’s much too broad.

Where is the mention of love, comradery, support? Things that are missing in my life. I am on my own, which as an ambivert, the introvert side of me barely noticed, but the extrovert side has been ignoring the whispers of that truth for a while now. Recently that whisper became louder and much more difficult to ignore.

The Moment Of Realization

As we headed toward the house, following my friend and her friend, I remember thinking to myself, I didn’t think this through. This is going to be awkward. I’m only going to stay an hour or two.

The house was bustling with smiles and chatter. I made my way around, saying quick hellos to familiar faces, and then I was looking for a quiet corner in which I could go unnoticed for a while. But it was a small house and people were everywhere. I found my friend in the living room putting the cupcakes in special to-go boxes and so I joined her and her two friends, helping with the task at hand and awkwardly trying to participate in the conversation that felt so natural between the other three women. I focused on the task, for now, it was something to do.

When all the cupcake boxes were filled, I found myself alone. I sat there, scrolling on my phone, feeling anxious and guilty because I knew I was hiding. But my aloneness was short-lived. Soon I found myself with a plate of food sitting between a woman and her stepdaughter talking about jewelry to my right and a group of elderly women having another conversation to my left. I sat there quietly, fiddling with my rice and beans.

I was there because someone had died, my friend’s grandmother. Our families were close, so close in fact they were all considered an extension of my family. The two families share a bond that went back to their roots, growing up together in the streets of Port Au Prince, Haiti. Then when many members from both families immigrated to the United States, those that landed in New York reconnected and the semblance of family between them was unwavering.

When the news spread to my mother, aunts, and uncle that the matriarch of the family had passed away, it was like losing their own mother all over again. They of course had attended the funeral, paid their respects, but I was the only one from my family to go to the repast.

I grew up with some of their children. They were honorary cousins. But as we grew up, entering into young adulthood then adulthood, our lives went in separate directions; we lost touch. Outside of social media, we didn’t know each other. My friend was the only one from the family I knew well because she and her mother had been renting the upstairs apartment in my home since we were kids.

Eventually, I found more familiar faces and was reintroduced to those that didn’t remember me or didn’t know me. The awkwardness passed and I was welcomed with open arms. I engaged in conversations reminiscing and catching up while indulging in yellow cake and sipping cheap red wine.

Even though everything felt fine now, I was hit with a pang of jealousy. The bond between the brothers, sisters, and cousins that I knew growing up was a tight one. They were all best friends. They spent a whole hour taking a bunch of pictures and laughing as they tortured their own children into taking more pictures than they wanted. We’ve all done it, “Okay one more,” “Alright one more with so and so,” “Wait we didn’t get a group shot”.

And while I’m still considered family, I was left on the sidelines of all the photo-taking fun. I wasn’t part of the best friend group. I wasn’t part of their community. I was honorary, I had no real title. That was when I realized I was all alone. Or at least that’s when I was forced to acknowledge it. I didn’t belong to any community.

In my 30-something years of life, my sense of community has shifted and changed with each milestone in my life. In childhood, my community was my family. I lived in a house filled with extended family and because they were strict, wanting to keep me in their line of sight at all times, my opportunity to develop friendships remained mostly during school hours.

When I transitioned from elementary school to middle school/high school, most of my friends went to a different school. I felt like a lost lamb, doe-eyed and in search of connection. The people I attached myself to only seemed to tolerate me. I felt ugly and awkward in comparison.

It took a while to get my footing, eventually reconnecting with my best friend from preschool. She was popular and took me in as if no time had passed, introducing me to a group of people that would come to love and accept me. They became my community, they got me through high school. We had a tradition of gathering at Mac’s crib after school. That was our spot, the place we could go to be ourselves — teenagers laughing, joking, being inappropriate, and just doing our best to figure out life, relationships, and sex.

When I went away to college, I became part of another friend group, a new community of young adults, helping me explore my newfound freedom. We were reckless, but it was the best time of my life.

As much as I still love all those people individually, we’ve all moved on to separate lives. We stay connected via social media, but that doesn’t exactly foster a real connection. Everyone has moved one. People have moved away, started new careers, started families, leaving behind their friends from their teens and twenties. We’re 30-somethings now, consumed with the ins and outs of our daily lives, focused on responsibility and routine — adulting. So unless somebody makes the first move, nobody is really concerned with reconnecting with old pals.

I grew up on sitcoms like Friends, watching the bond those characters shared. Later I fell in love with the characters and stories of other shows like How I Met Your Mother, New Girl, and Girlfriends. They may be fictional characters, but they represent something that’s missing in my life. I miss the love and comfort that comes from having a close tight-knit group of friends. I miss the laughter, love, and support. But my friends are all scattered now.

After 30-something years, I’ve dealt with my fair share of loss and the community that once filled my household and raised me up is dwindling in numbers as people begin to age and move on to another life. I was an only child but I had my cousins. They were for all intents and purposes my brothers, but our connection is lost. One of them is gone now, one of them is battling mental illness, and the other my last remaining brother has a family of his own now. In terms of friendship, I’m down to one really good friend who is for the most part one of the few people I can consistently rely on.

The no-friends thing started to become a little more in my face when I started promoting myself. I wasn’t promoting myself to my friends. I was promoting myself to people I was “cool” with at some point in my life but were now strictly Facebook friends. I can’t force anyone to click the links I post, I can only hope. I became that same doe-eyed girl from the first day of 7th grade, searching for love and support, and coming up short. The reality was none of them were writers and most are probably not even consistent readers, so why should they care?

Things changed when I discovered a bunch of Facebook groups for Vocal Media writers (and later Medium). It was exactly what I was looking for. A group of people with similar interests that I could connect with. They were actually willing to read my work and give me honest feedback. They became that support I had been looking for. They became the community I needed. There are so many lovely people in those groups, who’ve encouraged me, who gave me feedback and made me feel seen as a writer. Their words let me know that I wasn’t crazy to pursue this. Finding them has been a blessing.

For so long my “writing community” was just a few friends who would read my work. Those few friends dwindled down to one person and I wondered how long I would be able to take up his time before I “overstayed my welcome.”

And while I appreciate my online writing community, I can’t deny the fact that I want a connection beyond the screen, beyond just my writing. To connect with people I can be my real authentic self with. To feel that sense of comradery again.

For now, this space gives me something I need. It connects me to humans all over the world and even though it’s through the screen, I’m glad to be part of this community of writers.

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