It’s almost been 8 months since I first arrived in Seattle. It’s a long time.
While I’ve come around to liking the city, if I allow myself to be honest–I’m still very frustrated about living here. It’s been a long time and I still don’t need one hand to count how many actual friends I have.
I’m tired of forcing myself into every social gathering for 8 months. Someone once said to me, “Man you come out to everything I’ve seen you everywhere.”
That’s precisely the point thanks for noticing. I’m tired of the superficial friendliness followed by “oh hey go get your own social circle” mentality. I’m tired of caring about grand issues when you can’t make someone random new guy feel at home.
I just feel a distinct impression that my presence here doesn’t matter. I don’t feel like I’ve touched anyone’s life in any meaningful way. That if I were to pack my bags and leave tomorrow,
Maybe it’s too much to ask. Maybe I’m homesick. Maybe I just want to feel known–to be in a place where I don’t need to reinvent myself all the time.
And like I said, in reverse, I don’t feel like I’ve been meaningful to anyone.
I think I’m tired of moving. Of uprooting myself everywhere I go. And yet I know the moment I start to sit for too long I’ll get restless and want to take off again.
Being adventurous has its downfalls…
Hang in there bro. It’s so hard post – college to meet and actually make new friends. I don’t know why. The youthful energy in college has left us, and now more settled, there’s just less to talk about in general.
I did, however, go to a church last week for the first time, and never felt more welcome to a church in my life. I think it was because the church was small, and you couldn’t be hidden. The pastor said hi, and a lot of other folks said hi, and in the end I had a 1-2 hour conversation about God/faith with someone I just met 2-3 minutes ago. they were a friendly group.
I really agree with this line: “I’m tired of caring about grand issues when you can’t make someone random new guy feel at home.” Sometimes churches need to go easy on the systematic change and just ask their people to be friendly, kind, and most of all, open.