Just writing

Asking yourself questions about yourself ~ Always a good initiative. I have been doing this lately. Okay honestly I do this a lot. I question why. Sometimes the answers shift something inside. Sometimes they bring up shadows. Sometimes they bring about joy or relief.
When I write a lot of times it is for the purpose of debriefing. I have done this since such a young age. It is to help me process and get through something. It is to help me sort out what is happening in my head.
So something I have realized through time is the value I place on friendships. They mean the world to me. I do basically all I can to nurture and keep friendships alive. I have realized though that I wanted friendships to feed me in a way that was not realistic or healthy. I needed the friends to replace the family connections I did not have. So the pressure I put on my friends was always too much.
I recently read a book called, 'Hold On To Your Kids,' by Gabor Mate and Gordon Neufeld. It finally defined what I had struggled with throughout my life. It talked about how in this day and age children are being put in child care from an early age because both parent have to work. They are put in pre school and so many activities. Families are losing their connections and attachment. They are not spending quality daily time together where they are relaxed, at ease, connecting to each other.Most of the time this is not because they dont want to! This is not done on purpose. Since all of us as humans have a deep desire for connection children are looking for it everywhere. The pressure they now face is to be 'socialized' adequately. So they do as they can. They start to try to attach to their friends because that is who they are with the most. They base everything on what their friends think and say (especially as they start to get a bit older). They replace family with friends. The book discusses the danger of this and what it does to our children and how it is damaging society in a terrifying way.
When I was little I did not grow up with a TV or cell phone. There was no social media. So I talked on the phone to my friends a lot. I went on play dates a lot or stayed at my friends houses for days at a time. I was homeschooled also from age eight to twelve and so I didn't go to school and see friends every day. However I still tried desperately to stay connected to friends however I could. When I went to school it was awesome for me because I could be with friends every day.
As a mom I really stressed out because I could not find a 'best friend' for my daughter when she was little. My friends were a bit behind me starting to have children and I was not very out going, so making new friends did not come easy. Also my daughter didn't really need a best friend so she was not looking as hard as I was. She had lots of play dates but I thought she was supposed to find and cling onto a best buddy. They were supposed to be soul mates. I honestly spent so much time stressing and crying about this. I thought there was something wrong. Now I realize she had connection in other places and little children don't always naturally form 'best friendships' with random children. They become good friends if their parents allow it and foster it. However the most natural relationships they want and do well at is with parents and siblings. Well that was a relief in many ways! However it was also a challenge. Fostering attachment does not come easy in this house. I can work hard, I can do do do. I can wash dishes and do laundry and I can read stories...I can do all the things I observed as a child. However just sitting down and snuggling? Playing games? Going outside and just hanging out? That is a whole different story. I can see how my children will base more and more value on friendships if need be. I dont want that to be their story. Friends are wonderful! Such gifts. However they are supposed to be just that ~ gifts. I want my children to be able to want to just stay home and play, to stay home and be with me and my husband. I want them to not feel that desperate need to get out because they need to find connection!!!
I realize now that children from closely connected families do not form friendships that are the be all end all. Why? Because they dont need them.They have wonderful friends and enjoy friends. However the friendship does not feed that primal need. It took me years to figure this out. I had a friend in high school that baffled me because she would not prioritize her friends over her family. Family always came first and she just genuinely wanted to be with them. I had no comprehension of that! Now that I look back I completely understand. And her parents ended up being the ones that totally influenced my small grad class the most. They were our grad trip guardians. They had our class over for dinners. They ended up impacting each of us deeply. They understood attachment and connection. They pulled us close and held us dear. They nurtured us and fed us. They laughed and played games and challenged us to live life to the full, to make wise choices, and we loved them so much. I didn't understand it all that well then. However I knew they had what I didn't.
With all that being said, I had this other little aha moment today.
I have often wondered at my longing to live in community. I have felt so isolated and lonely as a mother. I have felt overwhelmed and unable to cope.  I have longed for a friend to chat with, wash dishes with, cook with, and just live life with. I have wanted to live on a small property and have another family or two live on the same one. We would all live in separate houses but our children could play together and there would be this feeling......(I just smile at myself) of CONNECTION. In our society in North America we are not usually able to pull that off. We are society of separation. We have our fences and create our own little islands. However when you find a space or a town where community is present your cup overflows :)
 I realized today...
Oh I am so slow!!
I realized that my restlessness, my longing, is because each day I am looking for and wanting to feel connected to someone. I am wanting to feel like someone cares about me in this little pocket of the world I inhabit. I want to feel like I am not alone in this monumental task I have before me. I want to feel like someone thought of me and cared enough to reach out. However with my issues that feeling of connection is so precarious. It is so shaky.
I dont really know how others deal with this issue. I also often feel like a freak :) However!!!!
I want to feel like I have roots sunken deep somewhere important, but often I feel like a flailing panicked new born. In all this, Jesus has been so faithful in wooing my heart and giving me opportunity to plug in here and there. To have pockets of time of deep connection.
Connection pulls you in
Washes you clean
Floods you with peace
Calls you to life

That is why my heart cries for it everyday. It is a relentless pursuit of mine.