Building Community

Our rabbi has been working on doing some matchmaking between us and another queer couple at our synagogue. She once suggested that we check out a Tot Shabbat, but we felt awkward doing so without little ones of our own. Then a few weeks ago, she said she had been speaking about us to A&A, a couple with a 3-year-old and a 16-month old. She said they are house hunting so she had suggested they speak to us about it, and they were excited to connect since we are also planning a family. They gave her their contact information to pass on to us. I emailed them and we arranged to go out to dinner yesterday and it was just an amazing time. Their boys are adorable, and they are both awesome feminists who enjoy family and friends and adventure. Easygoing and very relaxed mothers, sharing equally in the smallest of tasks and trading off breastfeeding (they both have milk from having been pregnant) and not stressing over their children's energy and curiosity. We just had such a great time with them, and it's obvious that they are friends we would enjoy both on our own as well as with kids.

This followed closely on the tails of a recent date with my friend E and her wife. They came over a few weeks ago for "afternoon tea" and ended up staying til about 9:30 because we were having such great conversation. E and I were the closest of friends beginning my second year in New York, were roommates for a while, and eventually lost touch. I reached out to her recently and we reconnected over dinner before arranging to meet the wives. She is now married, closing on a house in New Jersey, and five months pregnant. I was - and am - so grateful for finding each other again, and at such a similar point in our lives.

All of this made me feel like I'm starting to settle into my life in Long Island. I miss my old friends who are at various points in their own lives, but it's so hard to stay in touch. My best friend N is now in Rockland County where she bought a house with her husband, my friend B just moved in with her boyfriend in Staten Island, and my friend Allyson has been less accessible since getting engaged last year. I'm struggling to stay close to them - with N remaining my #1 girl despite the distance - and while I will continue to fight for those friendships and try to keep them strong, it is a whole different kind of amazing to be building friendships as a couple with other couples. It's very new, feels very adult, and is truly what is making my new home feel like home. To have friends with similar values and in a similar place in life - and in the case of A&A, to actually live close to us - makes me feel happy and warm and at peace. These are the people we would gather together for a baby's first birthday or even a multi-family trip to Montauk or Provincetown. We now have someone we can join for activities at our synagogue - taking our kids to the Purim carnival, for example.

I'm not trying to put all the pressure on this one couple to be everything we need. They are just hope for me that part of growing up is developing this dynamic with various people, and I'm realizing how important that is to me. It's also kind of a freaky reality check that we are close to being at THAT point in our lives - that our peers are settling down and having families and wanting to have game nights instead of going out to the club. Nicole and I have always been the homebody, small-town types, but in our twenties, most of our peers were more of partiers. Every celebration revolved around the expectation of "going out," which generally involves dressing up and drinking and just not our type of fun. It's kind of amazing to feel us getting to a place that is more our speed, being surrounded by people who want to go camping and go out for frozen yogurt.

Maybe this strange island can become mine after all!