Isn't she gorgeous???!
Anyway, down to business. I have a question for all my friends who are recent college grads: how are you doing?
That may seem like a trite, routine question, but I'm asking it intentionally, and am looking for an intentional answer. How has life after college been treating you emotionally? Aside from the dismally lame economy and student loans, I want to know how you are. How are you building community? How is your heart?
Why am I prying? I've spoken to many of you in the past couple months. Amid the typical updates about our post-university lives, where we're living, how work is going, I've seen a pattern. Slowly, my college graduate friends will spill the beans about something they are often ashamed to admit: they're lonely. No one warned us about this; there was no "Post-College Life 100" course. Funny thing is, we even think we are alone in our loneliness. Surely, we are the only people feeling this way! We are grasping to build lives for ourselves in a shaky job market, working like steam engines to gain a footing and make enough to survive, and when we punch out for the day, we're lonely.
Maybe college spoiled us. It's not hard to build community when you live in one. There are clubs, fraternities, roommates, and friends just down the hall. We get comfortable, and think that community-building isn't hard at all! We're grownups now, and we can do anything...including making friends. Then commencement happens, and we rejoice and celebrate with this community we've built. It's over! We did it!
Then we go home. We go to a new job, maybe a new apartment or city. Where the heck is everyone? Where are the kids our age who want to go to movies, go grab a drink, go on adventures? Why are we alone? Suddenly, our confidence erodes, and we realize we need to build community all over again. But where? Where do we start? What if our situation is temporary, and we plan to build community somewhere else...eventually?
Confession: I have felt very alone these last few months. I have brilliant, wonderful friends that I get to see, but many of them are moving away, and I get lonely just thinking about that. Some already have moved to take up new jobs, or do silly grown-up things like marry their soulmates and start beautiful lives. It's been hard to be lonely in a grown-up world, but it is getting better. How is it getting better? Hard, brutal work that makes me feel vulnerable, desperate. Like a five-year old on the playground, I feel like I'm walking over to someone my age and asking "do you wanna be my friend?" Talk about humbling. I've often battled with the "what-ifs," and asked myself it if is even worth it in the long run. I don't know where I am going to be next year, or five years from now. What if I build this community, and then have to leave it? It doesn't matter where I may be someday. I know where I am now. I know we are commanded to be together, to have community, no matter where we are or where we are going.
Hebrews 10:24-25 says "And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.
You can't be alone. It's easier to be alone, but as a friend said once to me "Do hard things." Do the hard things because they are often the worthwhile things. I know its hard, and I am nowhere near where I want to be, but we have to try. Friends, now is not the time to be alone. In this transitional, scary, exciting time in our lives, we need each other more than ever.
Proverbs 27:17 says "As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another."
You are not alone in your loneliness. Even married people feel lonely sometimes. Building each other up is something we are called to do. I'm not Catholic, but I do observe Lent. This year, I felt called to not just give something up, but to take something on. I've given up recreational computer, and taken on the task of building a community for myself. So far, it sucketh, but I know it has to be done.
So, how are you doing? Do you have any tips for building community?
LOVE
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