Kellianne Benson

December 7 – Community. Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011? (Author: Cali Harris)

This particular Reverb10 prompt resonates with me, soundly.

I have to say that I am really pleasantly surprised and touched by the way our community expanded as our family expanded. It started when I was pregnant, in our birth class. I made a few friends that I am not likely to have found otherwise. Also, as my waist line developed (and developed!) and pregnancy progressed, people started to reach out. There were all sorts of wonderful people in the wings of our lives who had already started families of their own. As Buster and I walked down the path of the wild and child-bearing unknown, a few acquaintances of ours who had recently made the same journey started reaching out. Hand-me-downs began to arrive. Knowing and much needed advice streamed in. Suddenly, we found ourselves with whole new clusters of lovely friends we didn’t have before.

I never understood before what it meant to say it takes a village to raise a child. Now, when I call a girlfriend for advice, vent to fellow parent in an email, get together with other terrific parents to put our babies in a pile, or have someone offer take my sleep-refusing baby for the night so we can get some relief, I have an inkling of what this expression means.

The really magical thing about this whole newfound community is that I know that raising Niko will continue to bring new people into our lives. We have the mysterious pre-school years ahead of us, followed by all those other mysterious years. We have all sorts of classes and clubs coming at us that we can’t even imagine yet. Before getting pregnant, I never thought much about how being a parent could potentially open us to a whole new world. Now that we have a child, I can’t imagine that I ever thought that being a parent would be detrimental to our social life. To the contrary, parenthood makes our feelings of community stronger than I ever could have considered.

I feel as if we have spent 2010 building the foundation for community strengthening. 2011 will only bring greater support and more easy rapport. Between all these newfound parent friends, our many friends at Vain, and all the magical people we knew before we had our big life change, I am pretty stoked.