Big changes can bring unexpected gifts.
That’s proven true for my wife Lisa and I as we’ve transitioned to living nomadically. Seven months ago, we sold our rental houses, primary residence, and most of our possessions. Now we live in hotels, AirBnbs, cruise ships, and with friends and family, working remotely as writers as we go.
There have been sacrifices—not having a place to call our own, not having our living space designed and furnished to our tastes, and travel hassles to name a few. But the benefits have far outweighed them—a sense of freedom and spontaneity, seeing the world, few maintenance and cleaning responsibilities, and a cheaper cost of living.
One benefit has surprised me. I thought our nomadic lifestyle would naturally lead to a loss of community, but the opposite has proved true. Now that we’re not tied to one place by a mortgage and maintenance, we’re spending more and better time with family and friends than we did before. Living with my father and Lisa’s sister for stretches at a time. Staying near our kids who live in different cities. Visiting friends across the country.
We still enjoy spending quite a bit of time in Phoenix Arizona where we lived and worked for twenty years before becoming nomads. We have some family and a lot of friends there. A particularly delightful surprise during our Phoenix stays has been living with our closest couple friends, Bill and Chuck.
Bill and Chuck have a guest bedroom and bath tucked away at the back of their house. They invited us to stay for a few days multiple times as we were getting acclimated to nomadic life. We all had such a good time together that Lisa and I approached them with the idea of renting their space for longer stretches while we were in town. We proposed doing it on a trial basis with complete honesty on both sides about how it was going. Maintaining our friendship was the highest priority for all of us, and we agreed to live elsewhere the moment it felt like the cons were outweighing the pros.
They readily agreed, and to the surprise of all of us, it has been a delight. They are kind and generous hosts, and Lisa and I work hard to be sensitive and conscientious renters. We’ve been here for six weeks out of a planned eight before heading off for months of travel elsewhere. The sense of “housemates” community we’ve all felt has brought a richness and depth to our lives, and has been one of the greatest gifts of our nomad experiment thus far.
You don’t have to become a nomad to find community, but it often takes intentionality. My daughter found community with fellow dog owners in her morning trips to the dog park. My dad has dinner with his sisters every weekend. I have a standing Thursday lunch with my closest friend and a monthly poker night with old bandmates from my music days.
How’s your sense of community? Identify the life-giving people in your relational circle. Put recurring times of connection on the calendar. Be intentional. Automate the important. If you do, you’ll enjoy a richer, deeper life, and you’ll take another step toward Becoming Yourself.
For him and any others with that same question, here are some practical ideas on how to engage in community:
Sitting in your living room waiting for community to happen isn’t going to work. Even though I’m an introvert, I stop and introduce myself to neighbors while out running. Take cookies to new people who move into my area. Volunteer regularly with a charitable organization. Play in a band at a church. Initiate monthly gatherings with some author friends. Schedule poker nights. Through all these efforts, I’ve been able to find really wonderful community. Life is busy. People are busy. If you don’t step up and initiate connections, it probably wont happen. Make time for the things that are important.
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b. I’ve had an accountability partner for over 15 years. A friend I meet with regularly to talk about life. Someone I open up to. Share my struggles with. Tell them the kind of person I want to be and ask for their help. Give them permission to ask me hard questions and speak into my life. It’s an incredible, tank-filling relationship. I was invited into this by my first accountability partner, and I learned about the power of this kind of relationship. When my job took me to a new state, I asked one of my new work friends to take on that role. When he moved away a few years later, I asked a different friend if he would step up. Over ten years, that partnership has become second only to my relationships with God and my wife and kids. Our lunches are one of the highlights of my week. I have that relationship because I asked for it. I admitted that I need help to become the kind of person I want to be and discovered that he desired the same thing.
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It came as tragedies often do – unexpectedly. I was setting up for an Easter music rehearsal at the church where I would be singing when a member of the band came in looking exhausted. He’d gotten a call just six hours earlier that his good friend and brother-in-law had gone into the hospital for a routine, out-patient procedure that morning and died on the table. A simple biopsy led to internal bleeding, and suddenly he was gone.
Isn’t that true? In moments like that, when life turns sideways, we’re reminded of how good it is to have people around us. To know and be known. To love and be loved. It helps in good times too. Having people to share victories with makes them all the sweeter. I’ve heard it said that sorrows shared are halved and joys shared are multiplied. I think that’s about right.
I’ve been thinking a lot about community lately. My wife Lisa and I have been discussing where and how we want to live in this next season of life. Our son Kilian is a graphic designer in Sacramento and our daughter Kennedy heads to New York in a few months to pursue acting after her college graduation. We live in Phoenix in a house that’s more than we need for just the two of us. As an author, Lisa can work from anywhere, and as a contract church musician moving into novel and personal development writing, I have a lot of flexibility as well. Do we move near one of the kids? Downsize to a condo in Arizona? Stay in our current house so we have room for visits from potential future grandchildren?
It’s about more than just having someone to hang out with. Even more than having people who will hold me up in the hard times and share my joy when life is good. It’s about the kind of person I want to be. I’ve come to learn that I can’t become myself alone. I can’t fully develop into my true self without other people. Friends who help me discover the best in me. Who challenge me to smooth out my rough edges. Who encourage me to grow into the deepest, truest, most satisfying, and joyful version of myself.
That kind of community comes with a price. Relationships are messy, time consuming, and sometimes exhausting. There’s always the risk of being hurt or disappointed. But I wouldn’t want to live my life any other way. I’ve found that the benefits far outweighs the costs. My life is richer, more satisfying, and more joyful because of the people close to me. And I’m a better person too.
If you want to grow in this area, you may need to reach out to family or old friends who have drifted away. Or maybe you can seek out real relationships at work or a church or a club or a class. My son Kilian found community in his new city by going to “Game of Thrones” and Bar Trivia groups posted on