In my life

Joe and I got married right after college, bought a house and moved to town. I was so incredibly lonely. I didn’t know anyone. I quickly got pregnant and had terrible sciatica. The nerve pain traveled from my back down my leg and incapacitated me. I was looking for a job, for friends, for a connection.

I had baby one, two and then three. And in that time I still had not found the community I longed for. I joined playgroups, book clubs, community clubs all looking for a place that I fit.

I started to find myself in a local job, a local community club and through my kids going to school. It took a long time, ten years, to find the acceptance I longed for. I had longed for a time I walked into a school auditorium for a parents meeting and I didn’t hide myself in a corner because I knew no one and didn’t know how to approach anyone.

Somehow that changed. Apparently you put yourself out there enough and people find you, like you, support you.

Seven years ago I started praying and knowing something big was headed toward our family. I prayed hard that I stayed in the parish we brought our kids up in. The parish that we found shortly after we married. It took three years for me to realize I was being called somewhere else.

Today I visited with a “soul friend”. Someone I would never have met if I wasn’t able to step outside my comfort zone. Four years later, I can only fall to my knees and thank God for bringing me here. Here my soul is fed. Here there are so many I am grateful to have and call friends. Here I belong.