My Village is Burning

My village is burning.

The community of amazing, supportive women I had come to love and admire exploded. I laughed with them, I cried with them, I vented with them, but most importantly I admired them and relied on them for support in my crazy mom life in the twenty-first century.

They were my village. And it still is my village.

 My village exploded. It’s not a surprise. As humans, we are judgmental, dramatic, selfish, and at the very least we have very little trust in others.

What do you do when your village explodes? What do you do when your village is burning, and those who left quickly burned bridges in their escape?

It’s okay to cry. Your emotions are real and valid. These were real women, real interactions, and real connections you were building. It was a real village.

You were called a liar. You were called a thief. You were called malicious. Others no longer trust your good intentions. Others no longer respect you. So cry mama, cry.

I don’t know what happened. I don’t know how the first building started to burn, and I will never know how that building caught on fire, but I know it quickly spread, and the firefighters were ill-prepared to battle the blaze.

I loved my village. They were my village. I stayed to fight the fire.

I am incredibly loyal. I should have ran when others ran, but I couldn’t leave my village.

There are other villages, but I don’t feel welcome in those villages. It’s hard to find the place that is right for you, and harder to find another.

Here I stand feeling hurt, betrayed, and abandoned. I cry real tears. I feel real sorrow.

But I will rebuild. We will rebuild. I NEED my village. I need it for the reasons all women do. Being home alone in the twenty-first century has never felt so lonely and unsupported. The women, I turn to on the Internet help me in my battle of post-partum depression. They help me in the battle of finding adult conversation. They help in the battle of feeling successful as a stay-at-home-mom.

I need my village to rebuild. I will rebuild my village. And like the phoenix, my village will return stronger.

Did your village have a falling out? Did you rebuild? Was it ever the same. I’d love to hear stories to help me thru this.