"Loneliness isn't the physical absence of other people.....it's the sense that you're not sharing anything that matters with anyone else. To end loneliness, you need to have a sense of mutual aid and protection. "
In 1993 when you applied to live in the dorms at college, you got this little postcard in the mail with your room mates contact information on it.
When mine came, it turned out that we lived about 30 minutes apart. So we met at Northlake Mall in the food court (that dates me right?).
I'm pretty sure we both left there thinking we couldn't live with the other person. We couldn't have been more different in every way.
Or so I thought.
A funny thing happens when you are far from home for the first time. You are surrounded by more people than you have ever been in your whole life but suddenly you are also the most lonely you have ever been.
So this roommate slowly becomes your person. You eat cheap mac n cheese and Jiffy corn bread muffins and watch whatever is on the common area TV. You race buggies through a Walmart in the middle of the night. You both get each other to do things you never thought you would. You stay up too late, you miss classes, you make bad boy choices. You talk too much, you study too little. You figure out who you are. And who they are.
And you find out........you aren't so different after all.
You both leave that college and go separate ways. You road trip to see each other. She walks the treadmill with you at the YMCA and assures you that someday, yes that boy who says he never wants to be married will marry you. When he does, she shows up. She gives a toast you still have in a frame. She shows up, newspaper in hand (turns out reading is one of those things you have in common) the day your first child is born. She shows up when you have two kids toddling and writes books with you. She meets you for coffee and lets you linger forever with real adult conversation.
At some point, you've known each other longer than you haven't.
I haven't seen her weekly since 1993 - and then last fall, our kids started taking classes at the same spot and we had these beautiful 15 minutes every week where we got caught up.
This year, that 15 minutes has become a full hour.
It's the highlight of my week.
You see sometimes you don't realize you miss something.
Sometimes you don't know something is missing.
I'm reading this book called Lost Connections and it's making me think about how disconnected of a society we've become in a virtually connected world.
I've been pondering how there is something to having history with people.
When you have history, you share what matters.
There are no gaps to fill in during a story because they do remember when that horrible thing happened, they can picture all of your relatives and the stories that go with them, they know the names of your other friends.
History connects us.
But history takes time.
I shared with a friend lately that I'm not good at friend making.
I'm friendly but I don't have the time in this season of my life to make new history with folks.
History gifts us the one thing I think is critical in any relationship - trust.
History tells us that these people are our safe peeps.
History lets us be vulnerable, open and authentic.
History connects us.
Mama Warriors, I think one of the biggest challenges of parenting is that it often DISconnects us from others.
Our kids become the axis that all revolves and we let the relationships that feed our soul fall by the wayside.
I encourage you today to prioritize connections.
We are meant to be a body that does life together. We are meant to be a people who show up for each other.
It's through our connections that we stay grounded.
We are made for history.
