Finding Your Tribe

I wasn’t going to join in on the Upcoming Thoughts this week at Three Thinking Mothers. Mainly because this has been a huge struggle for me to find my Tribe. I enjoyed reading all the other’s contributions, and it truly inspired me to tell my story of how I found my tribe.

We all know the importance of surrounding ourselves with those who encourage, are like thinking, as well as dependable, you know that group that become friends, mentors, partners, the people who truly help each other when it comes to life, parenting, schooling, I think you get the idea.

My online Tribe developed long before my real life Tribe did. It’s been difficult being a grandparent raising the grandchild to find the real life Tribe. Face it no matter how many times we went to the library, went to the park, met young families through church or within the community, though our children were the same age, I was always quite a few years older. I understand the feelings of the young mom’s, I mean come on who wants Grandma tagging along.

My online Tribe truly began before I even started blogging. One person, we met through Ivillage, invited me into the life of her and her daughter. She introduced me to the blogging world. From there on finding my online Tribe has taken over the course of the last couple of years. It consists of a handful of mom’s who are my constants. They are the one’s who are themselves, blog from their heart, listen when I need to be heard, pray with me when prayer is needed, give that sound advice, and share common grounds in our parenting and desires for our children. I have a few that are with me in constant prayer, a couple who are just a telephone call away, but mostly we all know we’re here for each other. I hope someday I am able to meet these fellow online bloggers, mothers, my online Tribe in person.

My real life Tribe has came in a much slower process. I however feel I have finally found the connect with some fine Moms who desire to develop our Tribe. We share many things from homeschooling, a strong sense of who we are in God, as well as the direction we desire for our children to grow and learn. I tried to connect with these women last year, however when we discovered all of Selena’s health concerns and had all the many trips to the Children’s Hospital, clinics and just learning and understanding all we needed to learn, the connections just did not happen. I am so happy though that these fine moms never gave up on me, and we are now off on a new adventure, getting to know one another, sharing with one another and I am excited over the beginning of what I see as a real life Tribe.

When we first took Selena in these things just were not a big part of our thought process. I never gave it a thought that finding other Moms to surround myself with would be so difficult. Once we started down the road though I never gave up as I knew they were out there just waiting for me to find them.