Who is your community?

Funny how the definition of community has changed over the years. Community used to mean the people and places surrounding where you live. Now, we tend to define community as people who have a mutual caring, support, and respect for one another. My community covers a wide range of people from all different periods of my life. I've attempted to categorize them below, but this may be an oversimplification. The categories are fluid rather than being mutually exclusive, sometimes one person fits into more than one category.

• Some of the people in my community share a similar background with me. My friends Joy, Teri, Lynn, and Marilyn are some of my "oldest" friends and were part of my childhood through high school years.
• Others in my community shared a special phase of my life or a pivotal experience with me. Sue is my lifelong friend from college days; Teresa is from my Rocky Mountain Park days.
• Some in my community are related by blood and we share a special closeness and always keep in touch; for example, my cousins Marilyn, Tom, and Janet.
• Sharing common interests is the reason some people are in my community. I have a group of cycling friends who share biking adventures with me. And I met my friend Darlene when I was investigating my family tree.
• Some people became part of my community because we found ourselves in similar circumstances. My friend Lynn and I shared a bond because we had children the same age and our husbands both worked at night.
• Then there are those who started as colleagues, and we became friends when we discovered we had common beliefs or values. Steve D., Wendy, Barbara and Kimberly all fit into this category.
• And there are those who started out as members of my community in the traditional way--by living in close proximity to me--but our personalities clicked and we became friends as well as neighbors. Janet and Jody fall into this category.

One thing I've never experienced is to have a community of friends who share a hang-out. For example, my friend Teri in Santa Monica met a circle of friends in a coffee shop; they're a group of unrelated people who patronized a particular Starbucks every morning, began spontaneous conversations, and developed friendships over time. The TV show Cheers depicted a community of people who hung out at a neighborhood bar in Boston. My lunchtime workout group is just beginning to feel this way and shows some potential for developing into its own community. I hope so, I've always thought it would be fun to be part of a group who evolved as friends in this manner.

I guess that community is simply a state of mind. It's a sense of belonging that springs from other people accepting you for who you are.