Current Mood:
Happy
Yesterday I blogged about our amazing community experience with Twitter. Everyday I go outside and see those pumpkins sitting on my porch; I am reminded of the kindness and sense of community we’ve found. Let me elaborate a little more on why I love the ability this program has given me to find people in my own town as well as accross the country.
I’ve blogged about Twitter before; it’s an awesome way for people to communicate with others around the world and in their own communities talking about daily things in 140 characters or less. We’ve had many conversations with this group of people, and have been unsuccessful at being able to join them at what are known as GR Tweet-ups. The group usually meets at a public venue for drinks, conversation, and face to face meetings where we don’t have to limit talk to small posts. They figured that since we’ve had so much bad luck as of late, and since we hadn’t been able to make it to a tweet-up, they’d bring the tweet up to us…along with some pumpkins for Clare. I was so overjoyed, and words couldn’t describe how it made me feel to have random people in our community reach out to us like that. I know Brad has already blogged about this, but I felt I needed to elaborate on how much it has meant to me. I had no words that night, and am still struggling to find them 3 days later.
All my life I’ve always had friends, and family around me. Whenever we needed something there was always someone there. As I grew away from my family by going to college on the other side of the state I didn’t have that. I’ve always had lots of friends to count on for emotional support, so I didn’t think much of it when we moved up to Grand Rapids, but then the friends we had moved onto their own lives and careers around the country leaving us kind of on our own. We’ve struggled through life making friends along the way maintaining some of those relationships, but it’s never been the same as having them in the same town and community. For the most part I figured that if I had Brad it was all I needed, and while he is definitely a good friend & partner in life I’m finding we needed to find a community to live in.
I thought that we had that when we bought our house, but people come and go, the neighborhood changes, and we still didn’t find the community we were looking for. While neighbors still stopped and talked, it just wasn’t what I had thought it might be. Everyone comes home, parks in their driveway, goes inside, and stays inside until the next morning when they leave for work. What happened to the days of going over to “Sam’s house” for a play date and dinner without a second thought? Today’s time and age has everyone freaked out about “Stranger Danger”, and people are afraid to become a part of a community. I know that we still need to be aware of our surroundings and not take things for granted, but we also need to have faith in people we know in our community.
Today I think people, at least most people in this town, are finding this in their churches rather than their neighborhoods. As most of you know Brad and I are not exactly the church-type, so we haven’t found our community yet in this town, at least we hadn’t until Twitter. This tiny program that allows me to talk to people throughout my day has instilled my sense of community once again. I now have a group of local people that I can talk to throughout the day about our fine community, and it has helped me realize that there is a sense of community here after all…it just took me 6 years to find it!
I want to thank the Pumpkin Ninja’s for all that they did, even though it may seem like a small gesture to most, it really brightened my mood, and for those that were not involved in the ninja experience I am still greatful to have you in my little Twitter Community. I can’t wait to figure out a way to show my appreciation for all of you, other than finally being able to put it into words.
Ecstatic
