On the Inside

List the tribes you belong to.  Talk about the experience of being in your element with your tribes.

A few years ago I was living in a lovely, expensive double studio on Hawthorne Boulevard, the heart of Portland's hipster scene, surrounded by bars and coffee shops and hangouts that were always filled with people.  There wasn't a day that went by that I didn't see some gaggle of folks wander past my window, talking and laughing as if they had known each other forever, understood each other, were the best of friends.  Meanwhile I in my studio had a dog and a cat.  If anyone, they were my tribe.  Apart from Rosie's need to be walked at all hours of the night and Willow's predilection for sleeping on my head, we understood each other.  But of course pets aren't enough when you're a person.  I so desperately envied the passers by and their ease of interaction but I had no idea how to make that happen in my life.  I tried my hardest, joining meetup groups and organizing outings to get the people I knew together.  I threw a Thanksgiving dinner party where I cooked a turkey and sat around chatting and playing UNO with some folks from work, but none of it ever really felt quite right.  I was sure I was destined to be horribly alone forever because I hadn't really found my tribe. 

A few months ago I bought this house, my first on my own, and as you do, I had a tiny housewarming party.  I invited a handful of people I really loved and trusted over for brunch and we laughed and chatted for well over three delightful hours.  It was an amazing feeling, to spend quality time in a room full of people who share so many of my interests, who see the world in many of the same ways I do.  They were my people, for sure.  And yet, that feeling of being on the outside stuck with me...still sticks with me.  That feeling of being on the outside is me, is as much a part of me as my own DNA.  I don't think being in the middle of the 'right' crowd of people, no matter how fun and engaging an experience, can ever change that.  Some of that, I think, is because we can't ever really be fully known.  In the same way that reading someone's memoir doesn't really give you access to them as a person, spending a few hours with someone here and there doesn't really show you everything they're about.  There will always be more unknown than known.

It makes me wonder, now, how many of those hipsters on Hawthorne felt separate and alone as they walked with their friends.  How many of them thought they were maybe doing it wrong because even surrounded by like-minded people they still felt somewhat on the outside?  How many of them envied the rest of us because it looked like we were in?

This post is part of The Scintilla Project.