feeds
I’ve joined Twitter and have been playing around with it. I’m enjoying “tweeting” as it’s quick, easy and fun. You find out what people are doing in 140 characters at a time.
I’ve started to follow friends’ tweets in the UK and around the U.S. as well as celebrities I admire. The name Twitter comes from the name given to the chirping sounds of birds or light chattering. I thought the word was appropriate for my spring update.
New technology is great as here I am in middle Tennessee communicating with you in the Capital District, New York and beyond. Although hundreds of miles away, I’m still aware of what’s going on in my previous home town of Guilderland or my childhood home town in the UK because of the Internet, social networking sites and conventional emails. And I want to know what’s going on because I want to feel part of a community.
Commentators say the rise in social networking is because, in our fragmented modern times, people want to find connections and belong to communities.
The hardest thing about moving to a new place is to find a community. The reality is that it takes time and effort on your part, and seeing opportunities where there may be none on the outside. Since we’ve moved here, I’ve found a few good friends from mundane situations, such as talking to them at a local fast food restaurant.
In my experience, community won’t come knocking at your door if you sit back and become a social hermit (no matter how lonely you feel or how alien the new place is to you). However, even if you do make the utmost effort, people’s friendliness won’t necessarily translate into friendships. For me, this is one of the hardest things to deal with – to find friendly people, but not necessarily the people you click with.
Spring is here and how are we getting along after nine months in our new home town? We deliberately took the time to look around the different local areas before we decided to buy a house. I’m glad we did that, even as it’s been hard living in an anonymous, transient rental property.
We’ve finally found a house in a family-friendly subdivision that we feel we can put down some roots and watch our children grow. We close on the house in May. I can’t wait to knock on the neighbors’ doors and introduce myself.
Buying a house was a large check box we had to mark off because that was our commitment to settle down, put down roots and join a community.
However, along with moving, buying a house is one of life’s major life-changing events and I hugely underestimated the house buying process and how much it would take out of me. After several weeks of active house seeking and negotiations, the time to celebrate was curtailed by a painful bout of strep throat and even after a course of antibiotics, I was struck yet again by another bout of strep.
Dealing with illness on top of a busy schedule with young children is physically draining and comes fast on the heels of an earlier emotional mid-life crisis triggered by the move to Tennessee and an immense feeling of loss of a community I’d built up over eight years in the Capital District. I wrote about this in my last post entitled “Go & Smell the Roses”:
http://www.spotlightnews.com/blogs/coffeemates/view_blog.php?blog_id=1237919810
But now it’s spring and with green shoots of life blossoming around me, I’m joyful to see my kids grow and laugh excitedly over their Easter egg hunts; happy to see sunny days and bright spring flowers. Everything feels alive and that’s brought me out of my introspection. And with buying our house, I feel the first excitement of putting down some new roots.
I’ve been greatly encouraged by my husband’s demeanor. Every night he comes home satisfied with the things he’s achieved and challenged by the new things he has to learn. It’s wonderful to see him mid-way through his career well, happy and motivated by his work and work environment. That goes a long way to validate our move to Tennessee.
Small kind actions from new friends have encouraged me to come out of my emotional black hole. And recently I’ve been inspired by personal stories of overcoming the odds.
A good friend I’ve made through one of those passing conversations at a fast food restaurant is a wonderful woman called Shellie Braeuner. Shellie is an inspiration to me; she’s full of love and energy, and a nanny to four children. She always wanted to be a published author and now her dream has come true by winning the Cheerios New Author Contest for her book “The Great Dog Wash”:
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/shortstack/2009/04/does_your_prose_stay_crunchy_i.html
You must by now have heard of Scottish singing sensation, Susan Boyle. Her story is the ultimate Cinderella (without the makeover) or Rocky Balboa story. She is every underdog story you’ve seen in the movies or read in the books. She represents a side of you that you may fear to show to the world because of your fears of failure, embarrassment, judgment or not being good enough. She has won me over with her courage, authentic attitude and her incredible singing.
In Susan Boyle, I see hope, my hope, and now I’m one of her many fans from around the world cheering for her loudly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-KiGva9dV4
Both Shellie and Susan make me smile and their actions have encouraged me to fight and to not give up on my dreams.
I end this update by wishing you a happy spring. I thank you for being my virtual community, for inviting me in and inspiring me to keep on writing.
By SUSAN S. CHEUNG
Susan is a freelance writer originally from London, England. She moved to Brentwood, Tenn. in July 2008 when her husband accepted a position at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. The family relocated after eight years in Albany, New York.
