This is really just a Sunday afternoon rambling. It might make no sense. It might make all the sense in the world. Who knows?

My friend G. told me that I have a lot of random friends in different places because I’ve never felt close to one group of people. I tend to disagree, arguing that I have different lives, I like change and I’m genuinely interested in meeting new people. Therefore I make close friends in different spaces and hang on to some of them for what feels like forever.

I need to preface things by saying that I don’t feel alone. Sometimes I am lonely but I know there are friends and family that I have that I can go to. Still, I’ve never found one space that I entirely belong.

The Circle:
I’ve been having this discussion with a close, personal friend as I watch him embrace life and the community that we both share. It’s actually the community I feel closest to right now, and outside of my co workers at “Babeland”, it’s the one space that I’ve felt most comfortable in and around in my 30 years on this planet. It’s the one space where I can exist as me, and everybody else can exist as they want to.

He talks about circles, and about how life is about them. I sort of understand, but I see circles as smaller communal shapes, housing an infinite number of people, and I think he sees a greater possibility. After all it is a circle of Life (yes, cheesy Lion King reference).

Still I keep myself outside the circle, whatever that means, outside of the spaces that I know I do belong. I keep myself waiting for an invitation to be let in, even though I’ve already been invited on more than one occasion. And then I jump in, feel the water, and jump right back out again. It’s as if I’m afraid that once I find a place, I’ll never want to leave.

He makes me think some more.

And as I think about things, I tell this close, personal friend about how I love change, and how maybe it’s what makes me stay outside the circles. That it’s one thing I’m not afraid of. He tells me that too much change is just as constant as no change at all. He makes me think that maybe they’re one and the same. And that maybe it’s time I stop running from circles.

Last night, at a party at a place I’d never go back to, I realize that I do have my circle. And it’s okay to embrace a community, and it does feel good to belong.

And even if I like change, and even if I eventually leave, it’s time to stop and smell the circles.