Learning the Importance of Community

I’ve never really been a social butterfly. Like at all. But at the same time I also don’t like to be alone. I’ve never been one to put myself out there and introduce myself to people, but I knew once we moved across the country that would probably have to change. I knew that moving to 2,000 miles from home would be difficult – I had never lived away from my family. Even after Prince Charming and I got married we lived within 5 miles of my family. My mom is my best friend (aside from my Prince of course), and I have two younger brothers who are 7 and 13, whom I absolutely adore. We have a special sibling relationship, possibly because of the age difference, or possibly because they’re so irresistibly cute (I mean “handsome”) or just because they have the most tender, loving hearts. In any case, I knew I would, and most definitely do, miss them terribly.

Even after we got married and my husband was at work in the evenings (which if you’ve read my previous post, happened quite a bit) I was able to just go over to my family’s house for dinner or just spend time with them. But moving to the other side of the country I knew that if I wasn’t proactive in finding friends, I would truly be alone. For the truth of the matter is, no matter how much PC wants to spend time with me, sometimes (or a lot of times) he just can’t. Nope, I was kind of on my own to find company on the lonely days/nights that PC was unavoidably busy.

I had previously heard of the Christian Medical and Dental Association (CMDA), and about a month before we moved I started perusing their website to see what I could find. I came across a ministry for doctors’ wives called Side by Side(SBS). “Perfect!” I thought. Although I knew we would probably meet people at whatever church we ended up attending, I really wanted to meet other medical wives, because truth be told, most women in “ordinary” marriages don’t really understand what it’s like to be married to medicine. And I really wanted to glean from others’ experiences and fellowship with women in the same (or at the very least similar) circumstances, as much as I could. So I messaged the Chicago group on their facebook page. I didn’t hear anything back, and subsequently kind of forgot about it with the business of the move and then getting settled in to our new home. About a week after we arrived, though, one of the members finally responded to my message (the group apparently doesn’t use facebook very much for communication). After emailing back and forth a couple times she suggested getting together for lunch. Since then we’ve met a couple other times for lunch or going to the Science Museum. I have really appreciated her reaching out to me, and love spending time and talking with her about medical school life, and she has three of the cutest little girls. Her husband is in his 4^th year of residency (of 5 years) so she definitely has a lot of experience and wisdom. I’ve come to really look up to her as someone I would like to emulate and look forward to spending more time with her throughout the next couple years.

The SBS group has only met once since I’ve been here (usually we’ll meet twice a month), but it was so refreshing to talk to other women whose husbands are in med school/residency. The group is led by two women about 55-ish (their husbands obviously are already doctors). At the first meeting one of the women was telling those of us who were new to the group what SBS is all about and she mentioned how they want to be available for the rest of us to call up whenever we need something or just want to talk. As she was talking about this she said, “Because we know what it’s like to never see our husband, and even when he is home, he’s not really there.” “Yes!”  I thought, “That’s exactly how I feel!” So I’m really looking forward to getting to know these women and walking through this journey with them, and probably even make some life-long friends.

My husband and I have also connected to a church and joined a Gospel Community (basically smaller groups of people from the church that meet weekly). This has also been very refreshing and much needed. I definitely feel as though I have a good solid network of people to talk to, spend time with, learn from, and just live life with. Moving across the country knowing absolutely no one, especially with PC being so busy all the time, has taught me the importance of community. And I hope to broaden my community even more by entering the blogging world of medical wives.