A Place Called Home

#reverb10
Prompt: Community. 
Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011?



With no real means around us, B and I have become each other's community. Which has brought us closer in ways we couldn't have imagined, but also, sometimes builds resentment. We've both been in town for a little over a month, but still don't have a solid community, "our people". We both miss having the people in our lives around whom we feel we can be ourselves.
Meanwhile, when friends from "home" call, we screen the calls because we both know we'll want to spend a lot of time catching up, but don't have the energy to say, "Yeah, things are great." Because they're not right now. Then sometimes, we do call friends at home, and they don't call back. They leave that call hovering in the air, not realizing what a lifeline that they could be. Not realizing that they are the semblance of community I feel I have right now. 
Things suck right now, honestly. And I'm tired of pretending that they don't. 
There's a sense on my part, something like "this should be the happiest time of your life!" But it's not. 
B and I just may be the two most miserable engaged people since the dawn of time. Me because I'm depressed, lonely and anxious, him because loving a depressed, anxious person is really hard and isolating. 
That we are insufficient for each other in this way is a complete truth, and we feel it churning the very ground beneath us. 
Last night, we went to Hobby Lobby and bought the items to make an advent wreath, knowing we'd have to catch up. We assembled the wreath, added the candles, and I pulled up the reading from the first Sunday to read. "Hope", it said. 
I felt anger. "Hope in what?" And then, I didn't want to talk about God anymore. I was angry for feeling like I'd been brought to this place only to die of loneliness. 
The wreath went unlit all night. 
It's in community that I have found hope. And without community, I feel hopeless. 


So my hope for 2011 is to find my people. Whoever they may be.