I’ve been spending the last 3 1/2 weeks visiting my parents in Germany. We are spending a lot of time together, reconnecting after not having seen each other for over 2 years. I’ve also reconnected with a high school friend who i hadn’t seen for almost 25 years. We hadn’t even talked until i took up email contact with him last summer. It’s all been very nourishing – and slightly confusing. Maybe not so slightly. Maybe it’s interacting with a man and experiencing our deep connection that has rekindled my longing, which to my dismay, has been taking on some rather couplemanic overtones.

Then today, i am spending the day by myself. I usually relish solitude, especially during times of confusion. I intend to spend most of today reflecting – in writing and while walking. Shortly after waking up, though, loneliness hit me: My parents had left early and i faced eating breakfast by myself. So, i worked with this during my morning pages. I began to understand that i am longing to matter. That sense has to come out of my own being – i know that intellectually and experientially. No other person can give it to me – and, yet, it is so much easier to hold onto my sense of mattering when i am with people who help me feel loved and cared for, who show me that i matter to them. I have friends who do this for me – and i love that and them! And i feel some exhaustion from maintaining those friendships. What i long for underneath is the ease and mutuality of reinforcing our sense of self-worth that i expect in a coupled relationship. I so want this outside of a coupled relationship because i want the resiliency of a friendship network instead of relying on one other person. After all, i am experiencing it during my visit with my parents: We share breakfast, which is a very nourishing way to start my day – in all the meanings of nourishment!

I remembered my interpretation of the type of dancing i enjoy: I prefer folk dances over couples dances. I enjoy communal dancing with spontaneous interactions over dancing with one other person. I don’t want a partner. I want a whole village!

Then the mourning comes up again: In this couplemanic culture, we don’t learn to create these kinds of networks. As much energy as i think i’ve been putting into my friendships, they still don’t lead to regularly shared breakfasts (for example). We still seem more individuals who sometimes interact than interdependent beings securely living in networks of people. In my dream, my vision, that way of living would provide us with the love and care we need as human beings combined with the ease and mutuality currently mostly reserved for coupled relationships (and, i guess, parent-child relationships…).

Now i wonder: How can i build (or find?) such a community? I have experienced it during retreats – and that is so fleeting. Now we’re all back in our regular lives as independent cells bouncing against each other virtually at pre-defined times. Nothing like the communal breakfasts i so long for.