Community through far flung online friends

Yesterday Ryan and I spent the afternoon at the park. It was a beautiful warm fall day and as I watched Ryan run around with other kids in our new-found homeschool group, I finally had a sense of peace that we had finally found our niche here. It hasn't been an easy road, especially due to the fact that we moved here at the beginning of summer when many homeschool groups are inactive in this area.

It was community found through online access which allowed us to bridge the gap from Illinois to here. For Ryan, he stayed in contact with his Illinois friends by playing XBOX online with them. While I am not a big fan of computer games, I made an exception to his online time this summer because I knew how important it was for Ryan to stay in contact with them in order to keep his sanity. A teenager without friends to talk to can be a difficult kid to live with.

I myself was able to stay connected via email with not only my Illinois friends but with many others I had made over the years. This contact kept me sane as I spent my days in a sea of unfamiliar faces. Moving can really unhinge a person. Everything is new and different and it takes so much energy to figure out how to do the simplest things. So much of what I took for granted in Illinois no longer applied here. So it was incredibly refreshing each day to return to my inbox and see that I had received a message from a friend.

As I build new friendships here and feel less dependent on my email inbox to provide my only source of companionship, I feel more balanced. I have a sense of gratitude that I have many wonderful friends I can stay in contact with online whom can offer up a safety net of sorts when I needed to be supported, but also that there are many wonderful people I am beginning to meet in this area. Life is good.

Note: Picture above is of me with my closest Illinois friends, taken just before moving here.