Finding Community as My Kids Get Older and Friends Move Away

I wrote this post back in June, a few weeks after I learned that my good friend Lucy and her family were moving to New Zealand. I didn’t publish it because Lucy wasn’t announcing her move publicly yet, but at the time, I was really struggling with the news. They are the people we spend the most time with (both in the city and at the house- their weekend house is five minutes from ours) and back then, it seemed almost impossible to imagine our lives without them. Mazzy is very close with Lucy’s daughter Skyler, Mike is very close with her husband Eric and Harlow thinks of them all like family. Their news coincided with another friend break-up (which some of you may have picked up on) and the double whammy really sent me into a bad place. I was so sad.

We’ve spent the last six months processing and preparing for their departure with hugs, tears and more goodbye dinners than I can count. I kept saying it was like a slow bleed to the death, but in the end, I think it was good we had all that time to say goodbye. They left last week. I feel sad they are gone but also in a much better headspace than I was when I wrote this post. I still thought it important to share, because I know a lot of people have had good friends move away or friendships fall apart during this pandemic, and I wanted to explore our feelings around creating an insular bubble and then losing it.

It’s no secret that a lot of people decided to leave NYC this year. Families in particular. I thought about it too. I’m still thinking about what life would be like if we lived in other places, even though we’ve decided we’re not going anywhere. I just have this new unsettling feeling of being less sure of my life choices, which has been exacerbated by so many people I know making big changes.

Prior to the pandemic, I never questioned living in Manhattan. I love the energy here, the creativity, the options. I’ve always put a lot of focus on my career, and in the city, I found comfort in being surrounded by other women making that same choice. We all wanted to be financially independent and got married after we had established ourselves. We decided to stay in the city because it seemed more exciting and we were in the position to afford it. We liked the convenience, the limitless restaurant options, the cultural opportunities, the lack of commute, the endless people watching, and the fact that most people we knew in the city had kids on the later side so we were all in our late 30s with preschool kids. Plus, when the kids were little, Mike and I bought a weekend house, which meant that we were living our version of the dream. City life during the week and a backyard on the weekends. The best of both worlds.

Things trucked along and I was very content for years. And then the pandemic hit. Everyone who moves out of the city always says, “We just needed more space.” That’s honestly all I thought we were giving up by living here. But the pandemic made me realize space is not all you get in the burbs. You get the closeness of a small community who has made a collective decision to settle and raise their families there.

NYC is a more transient place. I’m from here so I didn’t realize this until last year when a lot of our friends started moving “home.” This wave of sudden moves made me think back to all the people in our lives who have left over the years. There were three families in our building who had babies at the same time I did, but they have all moved since. They weren’t that important to me at the time, but if they had stayed in the building, that would have been game-changing for us and our kids. There was also Mazzy’s best friend from kindergarten who moved back to Australia before 4th grade. And another good friend who moved to her dad’s hometown in South Carolina. One family who relocated to Toronto for work. And families who moved to New Jersey, Connecticut, Florida and Long Island, because they needed more space, wanted their kids to be able to ride bikes around the neighborhood, or just wanted to try out a new lifestyle. So many relationships we invested in who ended up elsewhere.

Part of what is so appealing about NYC is that there are so many people. So many choices of who you can spend time with and where. I think that’s why all the loss didn’t register with me through the years. I have many communities. I have friends from college who still live in the city, although they have moved to other areas. I have old and current co-workers. I have neighbors in my building. I have mom friends I’ve made through school that I’ve known since Mazzy was in kindergarten. I have a few new moms I’m getting to know through Harlow’s school. I have familiar faces I see whenever I leave my building, walk the dog, or get a cup of coffee from my favorite coffee shop.

But for me, none of those communities really compare to the feeling of having a small ever-present bubble of three families during the pandemic. We got lucky. Our closest family friends from the city (Lucy, Eric, Skyler and Charley, who we met when our daughters were in kindergarten) also have a house five minutes from our house. During the Spring of 2020, when everyone was on lockdown, they had another family stay with them. It might seem crazy to have an entire family live with you for six months, but it worked. Their house became a gathering space where we were always welcome. There was always the same group of people hanging out (or working side by side) and everyone felt at home. The parents and kids all got along great. Even the husbands grew really close. I loved it. That bubble continued all throughout last year, even though we were back in the city, because everyone was seeing so few people.

Sadly, that family is one of the families we know leaving NYC. They aren’t going to New Jersey or Florida, they are moving to New Zealand. They say they are only going for a couple of years and that they will visit often, but it still feels like the end of something special. With them, I found a closer kind of community, more like an extended family, which was strengthened by a combination of like-mindedness, convenience, and shared trauma. Something I didn’t even know I was missing in my normal city life will leave a gaping hole in its place. And what’s even harder is that I think the relationships strengthened by living together through the pandemic created a closeness that will be impossible to replicate.

Since I found out Lucy and her family were leaving, I’ve thought a lot about why I feel a lack of community in the city. I have a lot of friends. I have many people I can call and make a plan to see. I have a handful of incredibly close friends too. But with the way everything has shaken out, with working from home, Mazzy getting older and Harlow switching schools, my friends feel like separate entities and not one solid group. When I talk to my friends in the suburbs, it seems like they have a whole neighborhood they hang out with by default and I’m entering this new phase of life where I’m not going to see people without trying.

One reason for this is the schools we chose for our kids. We live in the East Village but opted to send our kids to a private school across town. This means we know families on the west side instead of people in our immediate neighborhood who we might pass on the street. Harlow switching schools this year didn’t help, because it means I am going to be part of that original school community for so much less time than I thought. Mazzy’s got two more years there, but now she’s old enough to self dismiss, so I don’t have a real reason to go over there. And since there have been none of the usual parent events at either school this year, it’s made me feel disconnected from my old community and unfamiliar with the new one.

Another factor is being a working mom. I was never the person taking my kids to playdates or after school activities. I did drop off at school and outsourced pickup, which now I realize is when other moms congregated, made friends and went to the playground together. I didn’t really care about this until this year, when I realized that opportunity had passed. Also, it’s not like I go to an office with co-workers like most working moms. I work mainly by myself and shifted to working from home this year. My right hand person (Allie) has been working remotely from North Carolina since last March. I like working from home but it means I often don’t see anyone throughout the day except my family, which can feel pretty isolating.

I got this idea in my head that we should move to Brooklyn. I told Mike that’s where city people settle to raise families. But he said, “Why would you move farther away from the people you love to make all new friends?”

That hit home. Especially since, as the kids get older, there are way less opportunities to meet new people. I just have to make more of a conscious effort to see the people I already know and love. I have to find time and get better at scheduling plans. If I want a group, maybe I should invite a bunch of friends to dinner instead of just one. Maybe I need to join a book club, a workout group, or participate in Harlow’s school in a way that I never did with Mazzy’s. Maybe I could find a communal workspace and join with other working moms who have their own small businesses like me.

One of my best friends lives on the Upper West Side and I’ve been talking to her a lot about what I’ve been feeling lately. Yesterday she said, “I don’t think you really have a problem with community in New York City. I think you are entering a new stage of parenthood, coming out of a pandemic and mourning the loss of one very specific friendship. Let’s just hang out with each other more often.”

And we did.

Present Day:

This post was written over the summer, and I have to say, since we got back to the city and started the school year, I am in a much better place. This is mainly because I did all the things I said I was going to do to put myself out there.

1. I took initiative. I realized that in the past, I have always become friends with people who initiate the plans, because I’m busy and not very organized. Plus I don’t have to deal with any rejection. But this year, instead of sitting around and wondering why I don’t get invited to things, I started being a person who makes plans. I prioritized my mom friends in a way that I never did before and made sure I had a few things on the calendar each week. I took advantage of the fact that I make my own work schedule and scheduled breakfasts and lunches too.

2. I’ve become more involved. I signed up to be a class parent at Mazzy’s school for the first time ever. And I am became more involved with a charity that a friend works with closely. It’s a great cause and gets me out of the house to real life fundraising events in addition to the stuff I have been doing online. I have not found an opportunity to do anything with Harlow’s school yet, but I’m open. I don’t really know a lot of the moms, but maybe I’ll be really proactive and organize a moms night out. We’ll see if anyone bites.

3. I focused on myself. Gone are the days where you just become default friends with the parents of the kids your kid befriends. Kids are busy with after school activities and playdates are no longer supervised. Plus, finding a family where everyone matches up is pretty impossible. I think I got really lucky with Lucy. So, instead, I’ve just been making plans with moms on my own. I’ve also figured out a small group of working mom friends who are interested in the communal workspace idea. We all love working from home most of the time, but also feel like it can be a bit isolating and uninspiring. I found a place with a pretty cheap membership that we could use to work side by side a few days a week. I’ll let you know if we do it!

4. I developed a routine where I see the same people regularly. One thing I realized this year is that my community is not in the East Village where I live. Everyone is in Tribeca or the West Village, but I don’t have a daily reason to go over there anymore like I did when both kids were small and in the same school. So, I started going to Zengirl three days a week at 9am, which puts me in the West Village. It’s a semi-private session with other moms from Mazzy’s school who all have the same time slot. The group varies depending on the day. Having my workouts double as a time to be social has been incredibly motivating to make sure I stick with it! It also gives me a reason to go to Mazzy’s drop off in the morning. Then I have 40 minutes before I need to be at the gym. A good friend of mine has the same window of time and we started getting a coffee together. We sit at one of the tables on the sidewalk, putting us in the path of many parents and teachers we know, who are walking to and from the school as part of their daily routine. It has become a great place to congregate and chat with the same people a few times a week. Other moms sometimes join us, we’ve started to recognize regular patrons (and their dogs!) and it really accomplishes exactly what I have been missing— IT FEELS LIKE COMMUNITY!

5. Remember my friend from the Upper West Side who said we should hang out more? We have done exactly that. I realized the subway ride between us doesn’t seem nearly as far as it did when the kids were small. Bonus! Our kids have started to become close friends too.

Conclusion:

Yes, you can find community in a big city. You just have to put in some effort. It’s not going to come to you.

Did you lose any friends during the pandemic, due to moving or otherwise? Have you felt a deeper need for community than in the past? I’m curious if these feelings are universal or more big city problems.

If you are looking for holiday gifts, I highly recommend the Mommy Shorts 2021 Holiday Gift Guide which even includes a few volleyball themed suggestions in Mazzy’s wishlist!

Apparently is a reader-supported newsletter by Ilana Wiles. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Paid subscribers get access to the my TV Club. Last week’s discussion was about The Chair. We’ve also discussed Ted Lasso, Maid, Only Murders in the Building and more. Next week, we will discuss Succession Season 3!