“Alone, we can do so little; together, we can do so much” – Helen Keller
This weekend, I got to spend Friday night in a darkened auditorium watching 120 or so middle schoolers shed their awkwardness and insecurities and take on different personas for a few hours. Whatever the story, I always love the opportunity to see kids perform. This is one of the last plays for my middle schooler before he heads on to high school. As the audience made its way to the auditorium doors and spilled out into the lobby to wait, flowers in hand, for their actor or crew member, most of the faces I saw were unfamiliar to me. I had, of course, noticed this before, when M was in the musical in November and at his middle school winter choral concert in December. He is my youngest child, and so now that he has reached his last year of middle school, I know fewer and fewer of the parents.
It is an odd thing for me, to look around that familiar space where I have watched each one of my boys perform, in plays and musicals; in band, choral, and orchestra concerts; and last June, Z walk across that stage for the final time and accept his high school diploma from his beloved Mrs. G. I have many more performances to go, as the high school shares this auditorium with the middle school. However, with each year, the number of familiar faces in the auditorium decreases.
Of course, as with so much I write about, I know that this is just one more step of the transition process. When I had more than one child in middle school, I was that much more likely to know people in the audience. For so many years, going to any school event meant that I would see more people than I could possibly talk to. Although I often felt somewhat anxious about going, particularly after a long day or a long week, I almost always stayed longer than my children or spouse wanted me to, as I would inevitably get engrossed in a conversation with a friend. School provided all of us—my kids and their parents—with a sense of community.
I have thought a lot about community in the past few years. One of the things that COVID has eroded in so many of our lives are the various communities to which we belonged. Since leaving my job to start a private practice, I lost my work community. While it was hard to parse out the impact of that initially, given that our circles became so small in all aspects of our lives, it has felt more evident recently. Prior to COVID, my professional community was important to me. It was a place where I was known first for my clinical and research work in intimate partner violence, my training and expertise in trauma and its far-reaching effects, and my dedication to providing person-centered care for veterans and individuals who experienced trauma. I miss that community of people. I miss being known and recognized for that part of my life. When others are in your field, engaged in similar work, they have a different, deeper, richer understanding of the work you do. It’s hard to lose all of that. I lost or gave up membership in other communities because my kids aged out of the activities, lost interest, or I didn’t have the energy or resources to offer. As with many things, it doesn’t feel that I’ve gained back the same involvement I had in February 2020.
I wonder, as the community of parents I know feels like it is growing smaller as the boys get older and interests diverge, what it will feel like when I’m not surrounded by people whose kids have and are growing up alongside mine. Being a mother has been primary in my life for so long. So many of the communities that are and were important to me have been centered around my boys. The elementary school musical that brought so much to our family, the community theater that for years offered a second home to my young thespians, the Rosie boy moms who all have 15-16 year-old high schoolers now, the soccer moms who rang cowbells and cheered alongside me for years—from these communities have come deeper friendships that sustained even once the activities ended. As the boys grow, the opportunities to be involved become less and less. The volunteer activities sanctioned by the 14 or 16 year old tend to be behind the scenes, often solitary efforts. It’s no wonder that the lobby of the auditorium holds more strangers than recognized friends.
I have thought many times about trying to find new communities I can join. Perhaps through music, join a choir or maybe even an orchestra. But it feels hard to make a commitment for myself when I still need to prioritize the boys’ schedules. And some efforts I have made have been hit or miss. I know in my heart, that communities will form around new shared activities once school and my children are no longer the primary drivers of my life. It is hard to imagine a day when I no longer have a child up on that stage to watch, when the faces aren’t familiar to me from the years of these kids growing up together. Harder still to imagine when I won’t spend my afternoons and evenings Ubering my children around to rehearsals and practices, dress rehearsals and matches.
But I know all too well it is coming. Quickly. And that daily presence will be replaced with texts and hopefully, phone calls.
So for the next several years, I will continue to go to all the performances, the matches, the tournaments. I will welcome the opportunity to see the friends I know. I will love being a part of these various communities while I still hold membership. These communities that have held up and supported my children and so many others in their pursuits of a full and well-lived life.
Because together, we can do so much more.
❤️