Where's my Tribe?

This morning, my best friend since childhood wrote on facebook that she was looking forward to having Brunch today with her tribe.

I miss my tribe.

Lately, I've had an ache in my chest for home that has been a little debilitating.

Life here has become an endless round of work and coming home to stare at the computer screen - doing more work to pass the time between the short and infrequent snipets of conversations with friends on skype or facebook.

I miss going out for breakfast and a stroll in the little urban village where I feel most at home - where members of my tribe I don't even know surround me; I miss always having some social event to look forward to - the celebrations and rituals of my tribe; I miss having good friends close by who I can drop in on for a cup of tea and the tribal audacity of being myself with reckless abandon; I miss passing the time at the movies or shopping with my best friend - the tribal ritual of Saturday "stuff" we do. I miss the ease of communication and problem solving that my comes with living in a developed world tribe - and - strangely enough - I even miss hanging out with my ever strange and complicated closest tribe - my family!

When I took this job, I knew that it would come with some challenging experiences, I just never thought that feeling so disconnected would be one of them. This weekend has been better - I've been much more social and perhaps I am lifting a veil that has been camoflaging a tribe I just didn't look for hard enough, but this is a strange little half and half world where I feel connected to a group of people - both local and expatriot- who appreciate me but who don't really feel a conection back to me; as much as I might be liked, I am not accepted - and there's a big difference. It's a tribal difference.

I think in all of this, my fear is also that my tribe at home is changing - as tribes do - and that when I go home I'll continue to feel that sense of isolation even though I'll be right there. Right now, my tribe are having shared experiences without me, meeting new people, making their own new family tribes and building friendships around those shared experiences. I know its something that has pushed people before me to roam an ever increasing world in search of an ever decreasing tribe.

I don't want that for myself. So in the meantime, I try to stay connected - not just to my tribe - but to their experiences - to their thoughts and feelings. It's hard because much as I might want that and have the time for it while I am here - they are busy actually having those experiences and I am met - not with the beating drums of their thoughts but instead, with a wall of silence. Which is a lesson in itself. Perhaps being pushed to seek further experiences of my own, to really question what I want those experiences to be and what results I want them to yield for myself and others - is something to be done in moments of quiet solitude.

It's just that I find quiet solitude so much nicer when your tribe are all around you - close enough to touch.