Loose Connections

I sit in the front yard as my son (V) plays with the kid from next door. My chair has a growing, gaping hole in the seat, but it is connected with a few strands of plastic, and if I balance just right or place a cushion on top, it’s comfortable enough. We’re moving next week, so there is no need to get something sturdier right now.

The Broken Chair in Our Driveway

Three years ago, the same neighbor (K) was the first friend my son made in Stillwater. They bonded quickly doing daredevil stunts on their bicycles, riding down the gravel pile or jumping ramps K’s father built and placed at the end of our street.

At the beginning of the pandemic, we decided to limit our contact with other families. Like many others, we started attending church online, ordered delivery from local restaurants, and left the house only to go to the grocery store or the lake. A few times we sat in the yard and let the kids talk across the grass separating our two driveways. When cases began rising, however, we retreated inside. Eventually, we made the decision to keep V in virtual school for the year, and our only contact with K was through our fence as we played baseball and he jumped on his trampoline.

About a month ago, however, my son saw K playing in the front yard and asked to go outside. The last few weeks, they’ve played almost every day, riding bikes, digging up treasure, and fighting zombies. It’s interesting and refreshing to see the way they’ve picked up where they left off, and it reminds me of the friendships I value with people I see only once every few years.

***

My son is not cautious about making friends. When we stopped at the playground in the OKC Zoo last month, V asked another boy to play. Pretty soon, they were creating obstacle courses and running a restaurant that served invisible ice cream and hamburgers. When it was time to go, the curly headed child declared that V was his best friend.

Experiences like this are not out of the ordinary. At the Gathering Place in Tulsa, V asked a father and son duo if he could join in their soccer game. Later, by the water he helped other kids (and adults) find fish food that had been dropped on the ground and taught them about the various fish swimming with the koi.

V Feeding Fish at The Gathering Place

On another day, he met a girl at a neighborhood park who bragged that she was “great at imagining games to play.” They fished in the grass with sticks that had fallen from the trees overhead and caught giant “log fish” and smaller “bark fish.”

Perhaps it is my son’s ability to completely lose himself in imaginary worlds that makes it easy for him to connect despite obviously temporary conditions. Perhaps it has more to do with the different way that children experience time. Or maybe it’s a factor of his personality.

***

As I watch V and K play, I reflect on the ways in which my own caution prevents me from approaching friendships in the same way.

Since I got married 11 years ago, my husband and I have always lived in a place we knew would be temporary. A few months after our wedding, we moved to the Netherlands for a year. When we came back, I started my PhD program. Even though we bought a house in Denton, our plan was to move once I finished the degree. Six months after graduation, I accepted the position of Visiting Assistant Professor at Oklahoma State and we relocated to Stillwater. My contract was for 3 years. At the end of this month, we will again move to another state.

In each of the places we’ve lived, I have intentionally made connections. In Utrecht, I joined a women’s expat group and participated in their book club and monthly hikes. In Denton, I connected with other grad students, joined a social running club, and chatted with other mothers at the playground. In Stillwater, I joined a church and participated in a Sunday school class.

But in many ways these connections have been like the thin pieces still holding my chair together. While my son seems to connect fully with someone he may never see again (and I realize that this might be only an illusion), I am more cautious even with people I see regularly. The foundations of our friendships seem weak as if they could give way at any moment.

It’s not that I’m shy. I’m more than willing to chat with someone in the grocery store line, and I’m often the first to talk in my Sunday school class and book club. So, in some ways, I’ve struggled to explain even to myself what is missing from these relationships.

I’ve come to realize, however, that the structure of a book club, a running club, or a Sunday school class defines the parameters of interactions. Within these spaces, the subject matter and structure are more or less established. One doesn’t have to be friends with the other participants to have a conversation—even an authentic and deep conversation. To form a stronger connection means escaping these boundaries and in doing so creating additional vulnerability. This is the part I avoid.

Yes, I have developed a few deep friendships in some of the places I’ve temporarily inhabited. Grad school has a way of fusing people together over struggle and shared temporary experience.

More of my interactions, however, have been clouded by the realization that I will be moving on. I remind myself that these new acquaintances already have friendships, long since established which will continue once I’ve left. Many of the members of my church, for instance, have grown up together. They’ve gone to the same schools, participated in the same sports, and now are raising their children in the same places. Generations of their families fill the pews on Sundays. From my perspective, they are on one path, and I am on another that only briefly intersects.

***

Despite my resistance to creating deeper relationships, I crave more solid connection. After all, this is the reason I’ve joined the book club and the running club and the Sunday school class. And so, often too late, I desperately reach out.

When we moved away from Denton, I wrote a note to the parents of the other children in my son’s preschool thanking them for accepting me and providing contact information to stay in touch. A few accepted, and we comment on each other’s Facebook or Instagram posts. I wonder what would have happened if I had invited these families to meet up at the park or come over for dinner.

As I prepare to move, I now find myself doing the same thing, encouraging those I’ve met to visit us in our new home. “Please come stay with us,” I insist. And, my offer is genuine. I want to continue strengthening our connection. I value these friendships. And yet, I worry that I haven’t created a firm enough foundation. I ask myself, why didn’t I invite these people into my home before I put a 600 mile drive between us?

I wonder how my life would be different if I approached the opportunity for friendships more like my son. What if I threw myself fully into each of these connections and didn’t worry about what would happen when it was time to leave? What if I didn’t assume everyone else was on the same path?

Sunrise Along a Path from a Recent Run

As I sit watching my son, I feel the chair crack under my weight. I shift to make sure it doesn’t collapse, hoping it will make it a few more days. I pledge to create deeper connections at our next stop: to invite people over and move past the scripted interactions in which I have found comfort the last few years. But, I also hope that the friends I have made on this stop will accept my invitation, that we can weave a deeper friendship that lasts much longer than the plastic chair that will be hauled away before the move.

Does anyone else find themselves resisting connections? Or have tips for creating more solid connections? Feel free to comment below.