Reader! Hello.

So many of you have written to me since my last email, and I could have cried.

Yeah, Ok, I did cry.

My anxiety was a bit off the charts when it came to pouring my heart out to peeps I've not talked to for a while...but no surprise, you are the same beautiful souls you have always been. Kudos to you!

I started a story the other day - so, what happened next?

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​My husband and I spent the early years of parenting with our heads down, getting through the days. I was running a business (you may remember), and he was establishing his career.

One day, we looked up and realised we didn’t have a community.

You now know what that “one day” was.

I’ve never written about this before because some close friends have since expressed guilt at not being there during that time. BUT - that was my first takeaway from the whole thing (well, along with, go to the doctor if your kids are sick 🤔🙄!)

My desire to keep anyone from feeling unnecessary guilt has stopped me from tackling the biggest elephant in the room, the thing that perhaps most often leaves us feeling let down - something happens in our life, we struggle, and the people we expect to be there for us aren't. We are left feeling disappointed, maybe angry, definitely hurt. And we retreat.

But the simple reality is that we cannot always show up for our friends when they need us, no matter how much we want to or love them.

In our ridiculous, *busy* modern lives, we so rarely have any margin to catch others when they need us, often because we aren't being caught. If you're in hospital with a baby, and I also have a baby, then in order for me to be able to come and look after you, someone needs to come and look after my baby. If we are all operating in isolation, it's a recipe for disaster! Throw in sickness, holidays, the tyranny of distance or "insert other genuine reason here", and our friends not being there for us (or vice versa) isn't always a reflection of love.

So, it is not something to feel bad about or let down by (though, yes, we are going to need to unpack this idea later) AND it is why I am so focused on the need for community, perhaps even as a more important goal than friendship. (Eek! I reserve the right to change my mind about that in the future, by the way!).

If we are part of a community, it doesn’t matter if your besties can’t be there (OR if you don't have besties). The community will step into the gap.

This may be obvious to you or something you naturally experience. For many people, it isn't the case.

It certainly wasn’t ours back then.

But...

A few months ago, my husband was hit by a car. I was hours away in the mountains with our older two children when I got the call.

Within 10 minutes of his arrival at the hospital, my parents were there. They stayed with him and our youngest (who had been with him) until I could get back. Countless friends contacted me with very genuine offers of assistance, and I knew that had I needed it, half a dozen people would have made themselves available to us that day.

These were friends, yes. But they were also people with whom we have intentionally built community over the past five years—years that included COVID isolation. They were not (all) besties - they were people from our communities - neighbours, people from our church, and people from different friendship communities (*note* not friendship groups - friendship communities. A difference we will unpack another time.) We were no longer fudged.

Community is real.

​It changes absolutely everything about your life.

And there are people out there who would love to be in community with you. (In fact, if I were a betting lady, I'd put money on the odds that the people you want to connect with need community, too!)

So, what is my endgame here? Someone asked me this via email today, and it's a great question.

My ultimate hope is to set out a roadmap to help people move from wherever they are on the friendship/community scale to a place of strong community with 8-10 people. I think I know what that needs to look like, but I'm going to ask you to join me in this process of nutting it out. Currently, this all sits in my ADHD brain like a massive mind map. But, if you're up for it, I think we could create something pretty cool.

I'd really love you to come on this journey with me Reader. What do you say?

Louisa x

p.s. On Sunday, you're going to get same-same-but-different kind of email from me. Keep an eye out for it.

p.p.s. If you're all set for community and not that interested in learning more, then please unsubscribe here, no hard feelings. That said, I'd love to stay in touch Reader.

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