Photo by Nestor’s Blurrylife
Eighth-grade graduation is apparently a “thing” in our town, so Q and her friends have been talking a lot about dresses lately. She’s at that age where shopping with friends is just about the only way to shop. Their exchanges of praise and approval are so important. They need each other to understand where they fit in the large scope of things, to feel accepted and to belong.
I am both amused and annoyed by this 14-year-old approach to life—this constant checking in with everyone around them—but if I’m honest, I’m right there, too. Thankfully, I’ve learned that shopping on my own is the best way to end up with clothes that are me, but when it comes to my writing, I can’t seem to stop looking at what everyone else is doing: Who’s finishing up a book proposal, and who signed with an agent. Who posts more than four times a week on their blog, and who gets the most comments. Who’s funniest and who’s most poignant.
Sometimes I wish I could cloister myself away with just a typewriter, far away from all the news and the chatter, the stats and the cliques, the comparisons and never-ending race.
Community that’s not about the Joneses
But I need community. We all do. We need it for different reasons at different times in our life, but we still need it. My daughter needs it for fodder as she shapes who she is; I need it for inspiration as I shape what I can become. My daughter needs it to feel anchored and safe; I need it for companionship and courage as I jump into the swift current.
Ultimately, my daughter and I both need to feel less alone. We need others to affirm where we are (“That dress looks good/that blog post spoke to me,”) and to encourage us to be and do more (“You should definitely try out for volleyball/send off your proposal”). We need to know that we have both worth and potential, because we are social beings who were created for community—who we are and who we become don’t matter apart from others, the people we will impact and be impacted by.
Knowing yourself and your red flags
So where is that line between finding ourselves and losing ourselves in community? Because the possibility of losing ourselves is just as real as the experience of finding ourselves. I walk that line each day as I participate in today’s “writer’s life.” Social media makes a writing community readily available, but it also can make it overwhelming and scary, harder to navigate and trust.
For my daughter, that line is crossed if she buys a dress she doesn’t like at the urging of a friend, or if she engages in behavior that makes her like herself less at the end of the day, when she’s alone and safe in her bed at night, without the voices of her friends surrounding her.
And for me? I’ve crossed that line if I find myself trying to be the type of writer I’m not—the funnier writer, or the more shocking and controversial one. I’ve crossed that line if my goals are shaped more by external comparisons than by internal longings. I start to lose myself in community when I become so wrapped up in what everyone else is doing that there’s no core of intellect and energy left for what I’m doing. And just like my daughter, if my engagement in my community makes me like myself less at the end of the day rather than more, something needs to shift.
What about you—have you experienced both finding and losing yourself in community? Do you think social media makes community easier or more complicated?
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