Today, I came across Joss’ substack re: Loneliness: The Four Circles of Belonging(Bonus read: Part 1: Loneliness: The Epidemic).
I’ve been having a hard time articulating how I’ve felt about community this past year. It feels like we went really hard with Recess this year, and our programming is gaining a lot of traction. There’s a lot of asks to participate in thought-leadership/networking events that have taken a lot out of the team and I, and it’s starting to feel tough. The collective and subsequently, the clan circle is starting to feel big and overwhelming. It’s the complex feeling of wanting to be seen, but not wanting to be perceived.
Joss’ definitions of these circles made it easier for me to articulate these circles so that I may draw clearer boundaries. I realize that I’ve accidentally rolled into a lighthouse role, moving as a representative of Recess, in spaces looking to build community and find belonging. In some ways I’ve tried to show up as my true self, but my authenticity isn’t really palatable for the grand majority. In some ways, it feels like a constant overshare, and I’m no longer in control of my own narrative because people put pieces together to create a singular persona of me.
This isn’t the only thing I have going on in my life.
Most days, I want to disappear, and I need to remind myself that I can turn it off. In these moments, I reset with my inner circle — like every quarter, Ellen and I go to the spa and hard reset. Or I spend time in-studio with Shanik. Or I play Smash with Jason for 3 hours straight.
I have plenty of people in these different circles: my collective is West Toronto, adjacent from the studio, where I get to bump into friends to-and-from the parks and coffee shops; my clan is the Recess network and volleyball teams; my squad is Aggretsugirls and the Gas Masks crew; my inner circle is my inner circle.
I have plenty. And I am grateful. Maybe I need to take stock of all the other people I’ve come across and recognize where they might sit — if at all. Not everyone needs to be here, and they don’t need to have access to me in the ways that I show up in these spaces. I don’t even mean that in a negative way, it just is what it is. I’m too far along in life to be worried about this kind of stuff.