One of my newest friends and favorite people just moved about a four-hour drive away.
He might as well have moved to another planet, in the context of how much we’re likely to hang out in the future.
He was my partner in crime—both professionally and socially at the office. He sat just a few feet behind me.
Now, it’s just shut-down computer monitors and an empty office chair. Today’s the first day of work where he wasn’t here and I knew he wasn’t returning.
Hearing the news a few weeks ago that he was leaving bothered me. More than you’d think. Like if you’d asked me to predict how I’d feel about a bunch of random life scenarios, I’d have rated my friend at work leaving the job and moving away as being a less-impactful thing than I think it is.
It occurred to me while driving alone several hours on a weekend road trip that I’ve become more sensitive to goodbyes since my divorce. At least the kind you know are forever, or damn close to it.
I think I’m more sensitive to ‘loss,’ and that I’m tired of ‘losing’ people and things that matter.
My wife.
Half of my son’s entire childhood.
My in-laws.
Many of the friends we’d made together as a married couple.
Family. Every single moment from that day to this one that somehow seemed Less Than because everything was just a little bit off.
The future I’d imagined in my head.
Dignity.
Confidence.
Hope.
Yourself. The person you believed yourself to be when you looked in the mirror or sat silently and alone in your thoughts in those moments before sleep.
…
But also, this is just THAT time in life. For many, many people.
I’m 39-years-old. Many people in my general age range have families and growing children, and growing responsibilities and time demands. They have pets. Demanding jobs.
People living just a few doors down or on the other side of town might go months without seeing each other. They don’t even mean to. It happens by accident. Just because they both got busy.
Habit. Routine.
And friends turn into acquaintances. And then strangers.
People have threats bombarding them from every possible angle—particularly as parents.
Many people my age grew up in a time and place where you could leave the doors unlocked at night.
And now?
Most of us won’t let our grade-schoolers ride bikes outside of our neighborhood.
It feels like kids are learning too much, too soon. They’re the first generation to grow up with access to mobile devices AND prevalent Wi-Fi.
With the wrong keystrokes, and no parental controls, my 10-year-old could learn anything he could think to ask. How dead bodies look. How to do certain kinds of drugs. What happens at an orgy. How to do dangerous stunts that have killed other children. How to use profanity like a comedian to make hundreds of people laugh and applaud. He could read about child rape. He could watch a video of some racist cock trying to convince others that the value of a human being should be measured by their skin tone. Or some homicidal maniac encouraging children to arm themselves and hurt others.
21st century parenting is a total shit-show, but I’m reasonably sure that’s been true for every generation of parents who had to face new challenges without anything resembling an instruction manual on how to navigate it effectively.
BUT.
We are dealing with something on a scale never before seen in human history that exacerbates all of this and brings greater intensity to negative life situations, like a friend moving away.
Everyone is dealing with this—not just parents.
Sometimes, It Takes a Village
Someone with a better grasp on sociology than me may want to correct me, but I’m of the very strong belief that for virtually all of human history until, like, five minutes ago (50 years, at most?), most people in human society, regardless of where they lived—city or farm—experienced life the way people in tribes and villages did.
We didn’t have digital or even amazing telecom infrastructure weaving in and out of every small- and mid-sized town 40 years ago.
People HAD to speak in person, or mail a physical letter to even communicate with other people.
Neighbors knew each other. They frequently knocked on one another’s doors to borrow an egg or a cup of sugar.
If one of my neighbors I don’t know knocks on my door and asks to borrow an egg or a cup of sugar, I’m going to tell them I don’t have any (even if I do) through my locked screen door, and assume they’re plotting my murder.
And I seriously live in a ‘nice,’ ‘safe’ neighborhood where, honestly, I’m probably the scariest person because I’m a single adult male who lives alone and probably in their imaginations collects flea market-purchased taxidermy and eats a lot of Hot Pockets. (*shakes head no*)
…
Seriously.
Human beings have adult challenges.
They can range from small-appliance repair and the inability to reach something on the top shelf, to emergency childcare or transportation to a hospital.
And I think it’s EASILY demonstrable that back in 1980 when there were 100 million fewer people in the United States, MORE people knew one another and were interconnected on a personal level.
Basically, when life was HARD, on a minor level (small repair) or a macro one (death in family or major illness) the majority of people were surrounded by people who would help shoulder some of that load.
You can still find pockets of this.
School communities.
Big families.
Churches.
Soldiers.
Social groups.
Team athletics.
But many of us? By virtue of our age and life circumstances? What existed for us in our youth going to school, and probably even young adulthood, can disappear gradually and without warning.
Until life gets hard on a minor level or a macro one—and not only are you lacking people willing to help, but perhaps you’re having trouble finding anyone you’d even want to talk to about it.
…
I’ve shared this before in Could the Loss of Tribe be Jeopardizing Your Marriage, but it’s worth sharing again. I can’t explain any of this better than it’s written in this excerpt from Why Growing Up Is Hard to Do (But Why the World Still Needs Adults):
Isolation and the Loss of Tribe
“For most adults, the period of life they are most nostalgic for is high school and/or college. The longing for this period is usually chalked up to a desire to return to a time when they weren’t so freighted with life’s responsibilities. Surely that is part of it, but I think the real reason we miss our youth is often overlooked: it was the last time in our lives when we experienced a sense of “tribe.”
In high school and college, most of us had a group of great friends we saw on a daily basis. Many of us ran with a “gang” of guys, that sometimes joined with a posse of gals, forming a coed tribe that was enormously fun to hang out with.
Then, folks grew up, paired off, got hitched, and had kids. Few adults see their friends on a daily basis; the lucky see each other weekly, and for most, scheduling times to get together isn’t easy. It is then no wonder we get nostalgic for our younger days; it represents the last time our lives resembled the primordial pattern.
In hunter-gatherer tribes, male gangs hunted and battled together. Female posses raised their kids together. Everyone lived and worked together each day with dozens of others. Burden and joys were shared. One’s whole identity was tied up in being part of this tribe.
Today, we have never been more isolated. Many folks don’t even live near their extended kin, and the nuclear family is increasingly marooned on the desert island of the suburbs. Men (and women) go off to work in a cubicle with a bunch of fellow employees they may feel no real kinship with. Many women spend all day enclosed in the four walls of their home, cut off from all other humans, save their inarticulate toddler. Many people, male and female alike, are lonely and unhappy because they are without a tribe.
The heavy and undesirable weight of adulthood is often mistakenly chalked up to the burden of adult responsibilities alone. But the problem is not adulthood itself, but how it is currently being carried. The weight of earning a livelihood, and rearing one’s children, which was meant to be borne by numerous shoulders, is now supported by just a pair. Husband and wife rely on one another for all their emotional fulfillment and practical needs. The strain is more than an individual, or the nuclear family, was meant to bear.
So, (another) reason it’s hard to grow up is that the weight of adulthood feels hard to shoulder when you’re carrying it alone, instead of with a tribe.”
…
There’s Probably Not Anything Wrong With You
Sometimes people write me, and their focus isn’t on their marriage or romantic relationships at all.
Sometimes, they’re simply looking around and trying to figure out how everything got heavier and darker and lonelier without them noticing until one day they realized they were the last one standing in the room.
They grew up surrounded by friends in school. Perhaps by extended family at regular weekend get-togethers.
They bonded heavily with their closest friends in high school and college.
They stayed connected with many of them after school, because they were still the people with whom they wanted to swap tales and share life happenings.
But then.
Dating.
Marriage.
Daily life.
Homeownership.
Parenthood.
Financial responsibilities.
Adulthood.
Relationship struggles.
Isolation.
…
And maybe no one understands, right?
Because it doesn’t look and feel the same for them.
They have two friends, and they love their two friends, and you’re being ungrateful or simply not looking on the bright side because you’re not demonstrating the proper mindset or gratitude for the friends you do have.
It’s not even about what you have or don’t have. Maybe gratitude can help. It usually does.
But there are REAL consequences to a person’s subjective perception of how connected or isolated they are.
Ever meet a stay-at-home mother of four kids who soaks in adult conversation like someone dying of thirst in a desert?
Ever meet someone who lives in New York City, but doesn’t know anyone with whom they have a meaningful interpersonal relationship?
Ever meet an elderly man who lives alone, but spends every day out with friends, or traveling, or participating in some retiree life adventure?
There are no rules.
There are not life circumstances that automatically mean someone should, or should not, feel disconnected from the life they long for.
This affects people. Powerfully. It matters.
Maybe thoughts like this have been gnawing at you. Maybe this idea has been painfully pecking at your marriage or dating relationship. Maybe you just feel kind-of shitty and don’t really know why.
And just maybe, it’s because you’re a perfectly healthy and normal human being whose life circumstances has deprived you of things known to positively affect human life and health.
You’re not alone.
There’s nothing wrong with you. Your spouse isn’t rejecting you because they crave social connection or spending time with other people.
You’re good enough. You matter.
There’s just a little something missing. And if you recognize it, and take steps to do something about it, who knows what tomorrow might bring.
Probably something rad.
—
This post was previously published on Must Be This Tall To Ride and is republished on Medium.
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