What Do You Bring to Your Tribe?

Who is in your tribe?  

Here’s another question: What do you bring to your tribe? 

I saw a social media post recently where someone praised their “tribe.” The post said something to the effect of a perfect weekend is spent with this certain group of people. Not just any people, but their people, the ones in this world that make them the happiest. 

Right now, you’re probably thinking of those people in your own life.  

Most of us have our tribe, our friend group, our clan, or maybe you have some unique name for your friends like framily.  

A friend of mine once told me that it took her seven years to find her group of friends. She met them in yoga, and it just snowballed. Now, they do everything together and she gets the most fulfilment out of hanging with her yoga peeps. While they enjoy the yoga, it’s become more than that - interesting conversations, life experiences, deep relationships, even birth and death.  

What started with yoga ended up being about everything. Yoga may have been the thing that brought them together, but it’s compassion, a shared love for life, and companionship that binds them. 

My tribe has been my wife and kids for the past 18 years and, as life would have it, my tribe has all moved on. They’re all finding their own people, and as a parent, it’s a great feeling when your kids find those people that give them the fulfilment that only close friends can offer.  

But it did leave me with something of a void. Who, now, would be my tribe?  

This is not to say that I don’t have friends. In fact, I have my own group of friends that I find myself happiest around. They are a delightfully weird collection who bond over travel, beer, music, and a general love of life. Our problem is conflicting schedules. Our gatherings are fewer than they should be and farther between than we would like. Which brings me back to my initial question.  

What do I bring to my tribe?  

My schedule is incredibly busy, so I am constantly turning down get-togethers. In fact, just last week, one of my closest friends invited me to their always awesome July 4^th celebration and I had to tell them I would be working. 

I’m still in the mourning stage. I’m still learning how to live life without my own tribe. I try to remain positive, but it is a process and it is not always pretty. It means my mood is often a little more woe-is-me than I would prefer. I don’t know how much I bring that to social gatherings, but it can’t be a lot of fun to be around.  

That, I am afraid, is what I bring to my friend group - middle-age melancholy, difficulty navigating my personal life, and no time to hang out. Being my friend is probably hard. But thankfully, I recently had a moment of clarity.  

As the great “Tommy Boy” philosopher Ray Zalinsky once said: “Great, you’ve pinpointed it. Step two is washing it off.” 

It is a process. A process that my friends have helped with a lot, even if I don’t see them as much as I’d like. But, after all, that’s what our friends are for. Like that yoga group and the person who inspired this week’s column, our friends bring us joy, and we lift each other up when needed.  

I just wish I saw more of them.