The deep end

When I decided to take this year off and live a somewhat nomadic life, I had plenty of concerns. There were a lot of things that were going to be very new and different for me. Some I could prepare for and some I couldn’t.

Leaving community was pretty high on my list of concerns. In Colorado I had a strong work community, a beautiful yoga community and many friends to hike and adventure with. Building community is not an easy thing to do for me, especially as I get older and don’t have as many built in communities that came with young adulthood. This made the idea of leaving the community I had cultivated quite scary.

I had just begun to truly appreciate the value of community in my life. I craved having deep and soulful connections with the people around me. My fiercely independent nature had softened and I realized that life is better with people surrounding me. It may have taken me a bit longer to land here than some, but I now believe it is innately human to crave intimate communal connections.

I was sure that quitting my job, losing any sense of a routine or schedule and wandering around the globe for a year would uproot me from so much of my community. I thought I would have trouble staying connected to my people and feeling grounded. The physical distance alone seemed insurmountable.

The wild thing is, I feel just as, if not more, deeply rooted in community than ever right now. It has been something that has been nagging at me for a while but I simply could not comprehend how this was possible. I have been alone a lot, rarely in one place more than a few weeks and have so few ties directly to physical communities, yet here I am, feeling so loved and supported by so many. Somehow, all the things that I thought would shrink my community, expanded them beyond my wildest expectations.

This is in stark contrast to many of the people I have connected with during this time. Lonely is a word I have heard and felt so often when spending time with others. I truly believe there is an epidemic of loneliness that has pervaded our society for some time now. This has only gotten worse in the post pandemic world. It breaks my heart to see so many people feeling this way.

We are incredibly connected to each other these days but it feels as if all of our connections are surface level. Everyone is wading around the shallow end of the pool, too afraid to venture towards the deep end. The deep end is a little scarier and requires some vulnerability but it is where the magic is. We cultivate trust in ourselves and others in the deep end. We build strength and stamina independently but also communally in that same deep end. It is hard to know our own potential and the potential of all of those around us until we jump into the deep end of life together.

It seems like a silly metaphor but most are so I’m just going to keep rolling with it. As humans, we have a natural drive to better ourselves and the world around us. If we only stay in the shallow end of life, we only progress so far. Life is always going to ask us to get deeper, to explore the uncharted and perhaps unsafe territories to build our own capacity.

In the deep end, there is almost a requirement of community. It’s hard work to tread water and swim constantly. We need others around us for support and encouragement. Without a communal effort, you’ll likely have to sulk back to the shallow end to rest and recover. With community, you can do both of those things right in the deep end.

In the shallow end, community is not exactly required. We can manage on our own most of the time. This is great for a season, but again, it is human nature to want to move towards the deep end of life and share that space with others.

What I see, as someone who feels like she spent a lot of time in the deep end lately, is a lot of people standing in the shallow end. Nobody is sure what to do or how to get to the deep end. Everyone is jam packed together, intertwined but so far from being connected. Everyone sees the deep end and longs for it, but is too afraid to jump.

The gift of this year has been my ability to be in the deep end and encourage so many people to swim my way. To watch my friends jump in and feel the gift of this side of the pool has been a blessing. They know I am right there to support them if anything gets too uncomfortable. This ability to let my people come to me, has allowed me to feel so connected to so many.

Even when I only spend a short time with someone, it feels as if my soul is being nourished. My cup fills up fast in the deep end. Because I know true connection happens in the deep end of life, I don’t have any need for the shallow end anymore. My fear of losing my community during this year have been squashed by these moments of soul nourishment.

I hope the people I connect with feel it too. That there is so much less loneliness in the deep end of life, we just have to be willing to jump in sometimes. The drive to community is strong in all humans. The desire to have many people in our lives does not make us weak or not enough, it makes us more human than we know.

There is a pervasive belief in society today that we can do it all on our own. Dare I say, our cultural conditioning is telling us we should be happy in the shallow end but our soul knows otherwise. It seems like so many people around me are feeling this conflict. They are pulled by the belief that independence is strength but the knowing that community is required for humans to thrive.

I sense many are at a breaking point. We know walking around the shallow end of the pool is simply surviving as much as we understand that jumping in the deep end is thriving. I question if we can thrive in this world without a strong sense of community.

I’m learning so many lessons about what community can look like in a life. It doesn’t have to look like a nuclear family. It doesn’t have to look like a permanent home. It can be so much brighter and more diverse than I ever imagined. I no longer see community as a physical thing or a certain number of people. I see it in the depth of the relationship. The shallow end can only fill your cup up so far. The deep end has so much more potential.

So perhaps if you’re feeling a tug of loneliness it isn’t about finding new people and places. Maybe it’s more about holding the hands you already know and having the courage to walk towards the deep end together.

The depth of life that is found in the deep end is where we cure our loneliness. We have to be willing to come out of the shallow end. We have to be willing to go under the surface. Because the world is so beautiful when we connect on a soul level in the depths, no matter how scary it is to make that jump.