Finding My Circle…and yours maybe

Initially I thought these blog posts on “people” would get so much traction. Like I really thought by now brother Kanye would have picked us up and we’d be writing the Sunday service blog. I joke but still you can imagine my disappointment that we only got half the views we used to.

With that in mind. Let us try something else. Instead of just realizing and concluding stuff in my head maybe I should just observe that actually happens on the outside and call a spade a spade.

Spade number one I was lonely! Not because of quarantine. My whole varsity life basically. Funny thing is I’m always with someone, I am that person who is rarely alone. Even if I decide to go somewhere alone usually by the time I got to my destination I would have had a brief pitstop to talk with a human being or two.

At that point I started realizing my no new friends persona was not logical because I didn’t feel like I had any.

Voices in my head : “you were depressed or you just lived in your head or you just interacted with the wrong people. Now you’re in a better space. I am sure you can make it work now.”

The funny thing is I always get to a point where I quiet those voices and I’m happy. It seems it’s all making sense. Then everything falls apart and I find myself questioning everyone around me.

“Like the more I get to know you, I just know you less”

NF

Fast forward I decided to try stay out of my head, I put on my Bob the builder gear and decided to venture into the world of friendships and acquaintances again. This time in true Bob the builder fashion I was going to lay a deep foundation. Like real deep. So most of my conversations with people were not lacking for depth. Some almost ended in tears. P.S. do not cry around me I will have no idea what to do with you.

The one thing I neglected is the continuity of the processes. Firstly the continuous process of knowing someone. As my friend would say people change every 6 months or so, on that basis trying to engage will people on who they used to be simply will not work. But this in itself is unsettling because I like most people find comfort in being able to say “I know them like that.”

So I became deep 24/7 thinking that then the constant learning each other would always occur.

Voices : Yoh you know you are still lonely ?

Sadly this is when I realized depth without actual transparency is a waste, like having 3 storeys and no staircase/elevator.

Voices in my head: ” You just need to meet new people and start over.”

But then again I’ve switched up for a lot of my life and it’s still been the same.

Although some interactions have evidently run their course. I can’t say all the people in my life are the wrong people. Like I do have proper people in my life. It seems like a lot of it is right. But to quote Danny Harris “I’m so alone in this community of Mes.”

And after having tried the material possessions and the deep stuff and the let’s be similar stuff. Logically the only word I could find to describe relations that I think I never experienced was comfort. I don’t mean the we can chill while I am in my sweaty gym clothes comfort but the kind of comfort that puts someone at ease. I am not saying ease is the missing ingredient in everything but it made sense to me that the other problems I had with people and my own loneliness were a function of lack of comfort. Me not being comfortable enough to say what’s on my mind. Them not being comfortable enough to tell me about the changes they are going through. Us not being comfortable enough to be transparent. Us not having a comfortable silence so we sell each other lies instead. Ultimately me not being comfortable enough to enjoy someone’s company.


So here we are. In the present. With me learning to unburden myself and the people around. I have realized we have all caged each other. The weight of expecting someone to be like this forming the vertical bars. The horizontal bars being doing things because you want reciprocation. A lack of understanding and communication welds the bars together. Finally the cage is locked shut by a lack of forgiveness, condemnation and cancel culture.

Although this may seem like a cage only for the cancelled person. The trust issues and insecurities that forming this cage awaken make the cage a home for the canceller too.

We all know a bird can not fly in a cage and so it stays there for the rest of its years never enjoying the camaraderie of the flock. But luckily for me it seems like the same keys and bars and welding machine can be used in another way. To open the cage, liberating each other through genuine forgiveness. Learning to do things out of love without any reciprocation. Trying to understand before I form opinions and cancel people, breaking up the bars

Of course the experience of being locked up has informed me on where to go and just how far into a certain bird territory I can move, forming boundaries. For so long I struggled with letting things die because of the void they would leave. One thing I am happy I managed to do in this time was give some of the space to myself. Genuinely getting to know myself and in turn getting to know my boundaries.

So clearly I am still trying to figure out what a healthy relationship of any kind looks like. Figuring out what goes, what stays and what grows, what is just maintained where it is.
To some extent changing the environments I spend my time in

Certain environments attract certain types of people

Nathaniel Drew

It really sounds like flying is a full time job. It takes continuous effort, openness, mindfulness and is psychically taxing but hey can a bird find comfort anywhere else than in the sky?

On your way to finding your fellow blue birds you might even fly with some cool yellow birds that give you great memories. Or if you hit it off, you and a few yellow birds might turn green and form your own flock. Who knows! All I am saying is this things can only happen outside the cage. As long as I’m not free, even if I find the right flock, I will not be able to fly with them.

Maybe, just maybe if you like you have to scrape it off and start again from the first friend. Maybe start with Jesus. Just a suggestion.

Love Yours

A man trying to reconstruct.