Finding Your People

My ill-attempt at dressing up mini-Cooper. Clearly, I could never succeed as his real life (or even pretend) stylist. (paper doll clothes from printable paper dolls)

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“When you find people who not only tolerate your quirks but celebrate them with glad cries of “Me too!” be sure to cherish them. Because those weirdos are your tribe.” 
― A.J. Downey

Want to hear the sweetest thing ever? My ten year old history-loving son, who could geek out for hours at historical sites or on the History Channel, is now participating in a junior apprenticeship program at a living history museum. He is the apprentice to the tinsmith, which means that a few days a week for the month of July, he'll meet with the other junior apprentices, learn a little local history, and then go off to work with a master tin artisan for a few hours. He does all of this in period attire. And he is SO STINKING CUTE. (At ten, he would hate for me to say that. But there is no other way to describe my straw-hat-wearing-little-guy when he's at 'work'.)

It's an amazing experience for him, and he's thrilled, but I'm not going to pretend that he wasn't super anxious about this when it first started. He was worried, in particular, about the other kids. "What if they tease me for liking history?" he asked. My response to him was that they wouldn't. They were, after all, kids like him. Kids who enjoyed history enough to be working for free in a living history museum in the middle of their summer vacation. Kids who were, absolutely and utterly, his people.

Finding your people, your tribe, your kindred folk, your community...whatever you call it...and continuing to interact with them, well, it's priceless. For me, finding my people—people seems to be the word that works best for me—has been instrumental in my creative work. In making my dreams become real. In my life.

So often, the friends we have—and I am not knocking those friends in any way—are friends we have made out of lifestyle choices. Our neighbors. Our classmates. Our co-workers. The parents of our kids friends. And they are often real and true friendships, and invaluable. Most of my close friends were made this way.

But it's also important to find your 'people'. And these people, well, they might be a little harder to find. They don't always live next door, or even in the next town. Finding them might take some digging around. For me, I had to dig all the way to Texas (I'm a Jersey girl) to find a whole gaggle of women who I consider my people. (I found them at Lucky Star Art Camp, a place I highly recommend heading if you're seeking out creative tribeswomen). It's not that these women are more or less important to me than my lifelong girlfriends. It's that these women are my people. They have similar goals. Similar plans. Mostly, similar passions.

For us, those in my tribe, those passions are centered around the arts. My son's 'people' are passionate about history. Your people might be passionate about running, or cooking, or traveling or business. Whatever it is, whatever your passion is, there are others out there who are just like you. And they are your people.

And guys, I'm telling you, you have to find them. Because if you have dreams, it sometimes takes someone else from your tribe to recognize it as a possibility rather than an obstacle, or as something ridiculous. And it's like that no matter what kind of passion you have. If you're a runner passionate about running marathons, your non-runner friends are going to be hard-pressed to understand your motivations or your convictions, much less your running schedule. But your 'people', your running people, well, they're going to encourage you, run with you, offer sneaker and gel drink suggestions and buy you sticks of Glide for your chafing. They will know exactly what you're going through because they're in the trenches with you, often doing the same thing.

It's like this no matter what your passion. Your 'people' don't replace your ongoing friendships, they add to them. But you have to find them. Your tribe is irreplaceable, and with them, you can find encouragement, find commiseration, and best of all, find a place where, as A.J. Downey is quoted as saying above, all of your quirks are celebrated.

XO...Danielle