Starting Over. Again.

Photo by Laura Rivera on Unsplash

I am starting over in a new town. The upheaval this brings is manageable because I know in my bones that relationships are everything.

At 30, I moved to Washington, DC from Germany, a place I had called home for six years. Working tirelessly, commuting long hours, I didn’t prioritize forming friendships (remember this was the advent of the internet and its meet-up groups). It was a lonely time.

When my dear pal, Shari, moved to DC two years later from Germany, I asked her to live with me. Our rooming together gave me what had been a key missing piece in my life. A close friend with whom I could simply be myself. Over the years in DC, we waded through marriages and divorces, and when I gave birth she was offering donuts to the nurses. I joke that she was the best partner I ever had.

While we no longer share an apartment or the same city, Shari has “lived” with me ever since. But I do know I will need some in-person friends in Seattle, this place I am now adopting as my home. I won’t be as slow to create them as when the younger me moved to DC from Frankfurt. Thirty years of community building in DC enriched me in so many ways that when I left there for a stint in Mexico, creating a web of friendships became a top goal.

I joined a boxing group in the park. After class, I turned to my boxing partner, a woman whose English was as bad as my Spanish. “Would you like to practice English with me so I can practice my Spanish?” She smiled shyly, and agreed. The first few coffees were awkward, with us on our phones, trying to translate different words. But we kept at it, week after week, growing in language skills and friendship. We started hanging out more, going to events, and having Sunday dinners. We started calling each other twin.

Clearly something in me seeks change and yet change doesn’t ever lose its scariness. Starting over is hard. In mid-life, maybe more so. You don’t meet new friends from a college dorm, or your children’s playgroups. There is no existing structure to plug yourself into. You have to put yourself out there, talk to strangers, join groups, go to events. You have to leave your house, even when it’s raining, and it rains here A LOT.

Thankfully, though, the decades have taught me that loneliness stinks. Hurts sometimes. And that meeting people and strengthening the connections when I click with someone is one of the top joys in life. Dopamine hits galore. Then the snowball effect: those relationships usher in more than I ever anticipated. I gain not only a roommate, or a boxing buddy, but new ways of thinking, looking. My inner strength and creativity expand.

How does this relate to the cool stuff you have left to do? Everything. Your relationships to yourself, others, as well as – you name it – determine whether creative dreams happen or stay deferred.