Make Your Place

I’ve lived in a few different states, many cities, and a couple of different countries. There’s always a period of adjustment. Those new days and weeks when we slip slide into our days not really having an established routine.

Maybe we haven’t discovered a gym or studio we like to sweat in. Or our favorite market to pick up groceries for dinner. The best coffee shop with the perfect drip coffee or the dry cleaner that no matter what, has your dress pressed in time for your cousins wedding.

Or maybe it’s something more important, something big — like friends.

Someone to have a coffee date with. Someone who will invite you to their monthly book club. Someone that wants to show you the sites around the city. Someone that can recommend their hair stylist they have gone to forever, that really does the best color for the best price.

These someones can make a new place into a new home.

The trick is, you have to go out and make yourself available to your new someones. You have to get comfortable being uncomfortable. Hanging out, outside the house. Meeting new people and making your own way.

You have to open yourself up, or your potential someones will remain no ones.

Forget the trite social media rally cray “find your tribe!” How about make? Make the effort. Make the opportunities happen. Make GOLD.

It’s so tempting to tell ourselves not to go out. To not try. To not sign up for an event. Or go to a festival. Especially if you’re dealing with a whole new set of customs or a language barrier.

I’ve been back and forth and back and forth in Italy for almost two years now. Mostly for a few months at a time. Just now I feel like I have hit my groove. I have people.

People that message me, asking when I’m back. People to call for a coffee. People to see after sitting in front of my computer for far too long, not having spoke a word all day.

Days without someones can be lonely. But they’re not forever, these days.

As long as we make the effort, our someones will come.