read between the runs

i’m a homebody at heart through and through. there is very little that i enjoy more than staying home and doing whatever i want to do, whether with autumn or by myself. maybe it makes me a bad person since i seem to enjoy the company of myself to that of others, but oh well, i just like the things that i like.

i recently read a quote though, as seen on a random instagram reel, stating a message to the concept that “in order to live in the village, you have to be a villager” and that has resonated a lot with me lately. i think that in college and high school i embodied this idea. i was involved in everything and talked to everyone. moving out of wisconsin and into a mega-city has really taxed my desire to go out and do things with others. i don’t even want to hang out with my friends down here sometimes, and i feel like i am missing out on some of the great joys of humanity by becoming so reclusive.

not entirely thanks to this quote, but in general i have been stepping out of my comfort zone, even if just a little bit, this school year. i started coaching basketball and playing in an adult volleyball league. but even broader, i joined another book club, went to some coworker events i may have otherwise opted out of, and am being more social at school with people i don’t even feel a strong kinship for. these may each be small events when considered individually, but i feel good about doing more in my village.

it makes me think about where i will next extend my villager status. i will never love going to every person’s events, and i probably still won’t like hosting my own events, but that’s the exact point underlying the villager conundrum. very few people actually want to go to every event every week, but that’s the price of community building. we have to do things with everyone around us if we want to have a community and to be supported or uplifted when we have life events happening. a villager in the village.

coaching in particular has been super eye-opening. i thought it would compare pretty well with teaching, but there is just a completely different vibe that i can’t quite put into words i have about coaching. there’s more trust; more care, from the kids. emotions are higher, and i can already feel myself growing more passionate even though it feels super weird for me. i’m not a naturally loud person, so being loud enough to be heard in a chaotic environment is definitely a work in progress, but that’s just me working on being a villager.

i’ve been telling autumn how much more open i am to having kids; how my entire mindset has shifted around fatherhood over the past three months and i think that parenting is the ultimate embodiment of the villager notion. obviously there is the direct parallel to it taking a village to raise a child, but more than that is the community you construct around raising your own kid. my feelings about selfishness and losing that aside, i truly think that if something happened and i found out i would be a dad soon, i would be okay.

whatever way i keep building my village, i know i won’t always like it. it will be uncomfortable. it will mean less time by myself, less being selfish. but i think that when i look back at the village around me at the end of my life, i’ll be proud of the villager i became.

do great; be happy