Finding My Tribe

I have always believed in the importance of family. I still do, but the older I get, the more I realise how much family isn't just limited to those you are related to by blood or marriage. I grew up in a family of three. No brothers or sisters, just me and my folks. While there are advantages to this, I always felt a little empty having no siblings to play with. Throughout my childhood, my friends filled in the gap nicely enough, but it wasn't until I got to college that I really craved people who understood me in the deep way that only true family can. Don't get me wrong, I loved my blood family immensely. I just knew that my heart craved someone other than my parents to accept me just as I was. It started when I was a theatre major in college. Theatre majors are a crazy and funny bunch of folks, but they are insanely real and by and large, have some of the biggest and most accepting hearts of any group of people I've ever met. That was the first time that I felt as though I had found my "tribe."


When I left college, the people in that tribe faded into the distance for the most part, but they left me with a better understanding of what I wanted (and didn't want) from my tribe. Once I met my husband, I discovered a new tribe within his family. I love my in-laws and feel totally at home with them, wherever we are together, but I especially enjoy being in their home. Somehow it makes me feel more connected to them. After we had been married for a few months, I got pregnant with our first child, then our second came along 11 months after the first. For quite some time, my tribe was primarily composed of my husband and our kids (and our respective families), but after a while of doing the mommy thing, I began to realise the need for my tribe again. I needed those people on the outside to hang with, commiserate with, seek advice with, and just be with occasionally to keep my hair from turning gray in the space of 24 hours.

I found the beginning of my new tribe within my old one. A theatre major friend (who was living in the same apartment complex) and I started hanging out over coffee. She and I had always been close in school, but as these things so often happen, we had drifted apart for a bit when I left school. When we found each other, the strangest thing happened -- we clicked again like no time had passed. We started meeting once a week for coffee and found it so nourishing to both our souls that that weekly coffee klatch became a top priority and we wound up doing other things together too -- dinner, movies, shopping trips to Walmart for much needed diapers at 11:30 at night. She became my best friend. She still is :) She is more than my best friend. She is a permanent member of my tribe, so much so that my children call her Aunt Sif (not her real name). Since then, I have had a group of people in my local community come into my life via a local Facebook group and after having met several of them, I am beginning to think that some of them may become a part of my tribe eventually. I have some online friends who are a part of my tribe too. One of them has prayed for me so often and so faithfully that even if we never meet in person (he lives on the other side of the country from me), I will always consider him a part of my tribe.

For me, people who are a part of my tribe accept me, support me, and love me as I am. There's one other thing they do too -- push me to be a better version of myself. With those qualifications, my permanent tribe includes my husband and family (extended too), Sif, my cross country friend, my friend Rikert (also not his name), and my good listener friend Pendragon (another pseudonym). I am grateful for my tribe in all its many guises.