Getting Out There

My pity party is over. For the moment. I'm going to try to avoid them going forward.

We had a good weekend. And we were here, in Macon, the entire time. (Shock).

Husband found out about free yoga in the park on Saturday mornings and he decided I should go. I was reluctant. I made excuse after excuse: It's going to be too cold. The boys won't play in the park with you while I'm doing yoga within their line of vision. I won't be in the mood.  Keep in mind two things: 1. I LOVE yoga. 2. The reason I don't go often is that it is costly and the boys need to be watched while I'm away. Soooooo, yea, this should've been a no-brainer.  But I was nervous. I'd be walking into a group of people I'd never met and the what-ifs started.  Thankfully husband was a little insistent and Saturday morning I found myself dressed and being driven to the park, yoga mat in hand.

And you know what?  I LOVED it. I didn't actually talk to anyone, so there were no new friends made.  But I went and I had fun and I stretched my body and I breathed.  And my soul was better for it.

I then had a sort of ah ha moment: I need to stop being so afraid of getting out there.  If I'm going to make this place my home, I need to jump in. With both feet. It is hard, yes. But if I just sit inside this house all day, every day, I will never find my place here.  This is not mind-blowing stuff, but it did sort of smack me upside the head when I finally admitted to myself that I was just afraid of trying to make friends and do new things.

After yoga, the boys and I walked up to Mercer Village and had brunch in a cute little cafe/juice bar. And it was great.

Then on Sunday morning we went to church. I wasn't too jazzed about the idea. I have very mixed feelings about organized religion, especially down here in the Bible belt.  I find most Christians to not practice what they preach, and then I simple disagree with what the others believe.  So yea, church isn't something I love going to.  But here it seems that most people's social lives are connected to their church, so we thought we'd try to find a church to make some friends and meet more people.

In Atlanta we went to a Lutheran church, but the one here seemed to be small and we're not really looking for the small church thing seeing as how our motivation for going is to meet people.  BUT, we both refuse to go to a church that holds certain beliefs because, well, they're in deep contrast to what we fundamentally believe, so that knocks out a lot of deep South churches.  So we landed on an Episcopal church downtown. And they even had a family service at 9am, which meant I didn't have to worry about two loud children bothering others as they tried to pray.

The church was beautiful and we were welcomed by the clergy as we walked in.  The service had some similarities to a Lutheran service, so it wasn't completely foreign. But there was a lot of Bible references (I know, I know) and the word "dead" or "death" was mentioned many times which made me uncomfortable with Lukas sitting next to me - I'm not prepared for those questions from him yet! And the hymns were totally new to me. But it was on the short side (45 minutes), the sermon was directed at the children (be thankful for what you have/don't complain) and the message was one we've been able to continue talking about with Lukas.  The only off-putting thing was that there were maybe 30 people in the congregation.  Small is not what were going for, remember?  Womp womp.

But after the service, as we're about to leave, this guy, Brian, ran up to us and said he just wanted to come introduce himself because he'd never seen us before.  Well, long story-short, we ended up speaking to him and his wife for over thirty minutes - turns out he brews beer (like the husband) and they have two boys as well (albeit, they're in elementary school so it's not like they'd be friends).  And I was introduced to another women who happens to live about ten houses down from us on the same side of the road!  They also confirmed that the church is actually much bigger - most people just go to the later, traditional service.  They invited us to Sunday school, but that would've been a bit much for me, so we declined.  But all in all, they were so kind and welcoming and the guy even gave the hubs his number and said to call him so they could grab a beer sometime, even if we never come back to the church.  It was so nice to actually talk to people.

And so the lesson was loud and clear again; You have to get out there!  And it is not enough to just get out there, you have to make the EFFORT when you are there.  You have to talk to people.  Say hello. You may not meet your new best friend, but you might be surprised and start to feel a little more confident in your ability to make friends.