Community Living and Relationships

These past few days I have read several friends blog’s that discuss living in community. Funny enough, at one point we all lived together in a large community (no we are not hippies). We seem to be a generation that values people and relationships, they are longing to live in community again, I too have been feeling relational deficient these last couple weeks. Living in community has its pluses and minuses, pluses there are always people around, things to do, people to hang out with. Minuses there are always people around, even when you don’t want them around. I have recently moved out of community, well out of the larger community, to a smaller community, meaning I live with 3 other girls now, not the 6 that I did and the other 40 people that lived on the same property. They are great girls, I love them to death, but our lives are very different. I can actually go days without seeing them. The point of these blogs is they want to live closer to people they know, so that there is more interaction with each other. I still know people who live in a rather large community, and they so desperately long to get out of it. I think we don’t know what we have till its gone, I didn't, I wanted out, and now that I am out, I want back in. I completely understand, I complained too, about all the same stuff, the TV being too loud, or people coming home late and being loud, nobody taking the trash out, or cleaning up after themselves. I wanted out of it, I wanted to pick my roommates and make my own rules, and now that I have, I miss the value of having people in my life. I miss always having something to do, someone to hang out with, people watching me, challenging me to grow to get over myself. Truth is I feel like I am out of sight, out of mind. Nobody calls me just to say HI, nobody calls to see if I am free to hang out. I am just as guilty of the same, and yeah I do work a lot so the chances are slim that I actually can out, but all those times that I am not busy, I hate having to be the one to hunt people down to see if they want to hang out. Funny thing is there are several people who live within a mile of me, some just across the street and I never see them, ever. It’s because we don’t make the effort, I don’t and they don’t we are both guilty. Relationships take effort, weather the effort is a drive across town, a phone call, heck send a text message or e-mail for crying out loud, just let people know that you are thinking about them. Relationships are time consuming, and take mass amounts of effort, but to be honest I would give anything to have more people around me right now. I would get over the fact that I always have to empty the garbage, or that the TV is too loud, just to have the value of relationships again. I know that not everyone is as driven by people as I am, and that it is totally different when your married or have kids, which I don’t, but I do long for the value of relationships again. Longing for the value of relationships, means I have to take the time again, and make the effort, because if I am not I can’t expect someone else too, right? Right! So the challenge lies before us all, no matter where we live, how close or far, people are important. This is my little soapbox for tonight. Give me sometime and I will find a new one, I am sure.