I never once imagined that my husband and I would be raising our girls completely alone. I knew when I married my spouse that he came with absolutely no reliable relatives. I also knew that due to his family moving around the state every couple of years, he had not been able to foster friendships that stand the test of time. He was also in the military so most of his good friends, moved out of state by the time we started our family.
What I didn’t imagine, is that I, the girl who grew up with dozens of cousins and aunts and uncles, would end up quite alone in the raising of my children. When I was growing up there was always a grandparent or an aunt or uncle that could pick me up from school, piano lessons or 4-H if my parents were running late. There was always a least eight different people we could call if there was an emergency.
I actually had an aunt come over to our house one afternoon when I was a teenager watching my younger brother, to call the police for us because there was a homeless man sleeping in our yard. We honestly were afraid he might be dead and the benefit of having relatives close by, meant that there was no fear involved. Someone was always there to help or to pick of the slack when you were lagging behind.
I’m really close to my parents. I honestly couldn’t ask for better parents. I don’t just love them but I also like them. They are fun, caring, intelligent and loving people whose advice I value. Every other relationship we had in our large family, disintegrated over time. The biggest hit for our family, was when our beloved aunt and uncle moved out of state. They were the last members of our village.
We had a church family too but even that slowly broke away over time, especially when the church closed it’s doors. Those relationships didn’t stick around because at the end of the day, you aren’t truly blood, you’re just those faces you’re used to seeing every Sunday.
When I gave birth to my daughters, my parents and my grandmother were all I truly had. Even then it was hard because we struggled financially. Finally, we left our financial burdens behind when my husband was promoted. His promotion required us to move four hours away from our hometown. In the beginning, I wasn’t worried. It wasn’t hard to leave what little people we had to leave but what I didn’t realize was that our village, even as small as it was, was vitally important to our well-being as a family.
We’re truly on our own here. We have lived the last four years without people to rely on, without relatives to watch our children for a date night and the new friends we have made, have their own families and their own villages to maintain. We are forever on the outside looking in and it’s really hard!
Prior to our move, our old neighborhood was a large part of our small village. From the families with kids, to a single dad and a childless couple across the street, we had people to rely on. They would drop what they were doing to help us move a heavy item, come running across the street with a key when my toddler locked herself in our bedroom and to drop by to check on us when they heard my car died on the freeway. These little things I relied on and never appreciated until they were gone.
Our new neighborhood, which we just recently moved away from, was closed off and unwelcoming. We live in a highly political and religious area and it has made for cliques of people that are exclusive, untrusting and down-right mean. I locked myself out of the house one morning and without my phone, I went in search of help from the neighbors. Two families, shut their lights off on me. I ended up running down the street and flagging down a mom who I knew from school as she was driving down the street. In despair, I missed my village, knowing then that the need to have one is more important than I ever realized.
We also had a neighborhood full of children and none of the parents could get along. When parents bad mouth each other, it creates children that are bullies. We moved because of it. I’d rather be alone out in the country than alone in a neighborhood of cruel people.
If either my husband or I, needs to go to urgent care, we all pile in the car and there we sit as a family for hours, waiting for the nurse to call us in. If we’re sick, we don’t have people bringing us meals. We either cook or we starve. When we moved, we hired a moving company because we literally had no one to ask for help.
My children don’t have any cousins to play with. During Christmas, it’s just them. I don’t have nieces and nephews to dote on. I don’t have a sister-in-law or mother-in-law to call when times get tough. My mom and dad visit quite frequently which is a nice escape from our lonely reality but it isn’t enough. We’re missing out on the comfort and security of having people around us, who love and nurture and care about us.
I attempted to join a church, to try and find a sense of community but that was almost impossible to navigate. The village there, was so close knit, so ingrained by decades of being together that I felt excluded. No one was interested in getting to know us. No one was interested in my children and to be honest, it hurt.
When I read a post on Facebook about a friend whose mom came over to help her fold her heaps of laundry, my heart gets envious. Or when one of my friends is able to go back to work full-time because her in-laws pick the kids up from school, my heart starts to panic. I have no one to pick my kids up from school unless there’s a dire emergency. I have no one to help me with my heap of laundry. And it’s not even about laundry or childcare! It’s about community…a village…that I don’t have and it honestly stinks!
I’ve learned to live without a village. Most days, my husband and I are super heroes. We handle our lives with happiness, wisdom and constant hard work. Most of the time, things are great. We do feel at home here. We’re happy and content. We whether illnesses and tough times as best we can. Our relationship with each other is deeper and stronger than we ever thought possible because at the end of the day, it truly is just us.
But…I still miss my village.
