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Brittany L. Bergman

Savoring motherhood, building marriage, and living simply

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Building a Village from the Ground Up

Aug 15 Leave a Comment

During the past decade, I lost my village.

After I graduated from college—a unicorn-esque time that has no shortage of life-on-life social interaction—my best friends and I dispersed to vastly different parts of the country. I moved to Chicago, and for much of my twenties, I was once again surrounded by constant opportunities for friendship. I shared apartments with friends, and we often walked to church on Sundays, explored new neighborhood coffee shops, and went for early-morning runs or late-night dinners together.

In my midtwenties, as is to be expected, many of us started pairing off and getting married. As we did, we moved to farther and more affordable parts of the city or out to the suburbs. Our visits had to be planned weeks in advance rather than by text message mere minutes beforehand.

Then the babies started coming and the visits turned into phone calls and then text messages and then, eventually, silence.

I loved these friends dearly, but even still, I’m okay with the fact that these relationships ended. I would love to have these sweet women living on my tree-lined suburban street, our kids growing up running through sprinklers in each other’s backyards, but I know this isn’t reality.

Our paths diverged, and I see this as a natural part of life.

What I don’t know how to deal with is this: How do I go about building a new village when I barely have enough time to live my normal life?

How do I create a shared history with a new set of friends when our conversations are punctuated by needy children, when our coffee dates are few and far between given busy family schedules?

In the first year of motherhood, I was too tired and too busy surviving to even think about friendship. I went back to work full-time at three-months postpartum. Because of our schedules, my husband and I are often more like passing ships, handing the baby off to the other for some solo parenting while the other heads to work. Learning new rhythms for our family and trying to steal precious moments together left little time for anyone else.

But I can feel an internal stirring now that we’ve settled into a routine, now that we’re all sleeping, now that I feel like myself again. It’s as if space has started to open up in my heart, but as quickly as it’s opening, it’s filling up with loneliness.

There are a few things you should know about me: I’m an introvert and a homebody. I like to go to bed at 9:30. And I hate wearing a bra. So, even though I technically have more breathing room in my life these days, you can see why it would be more desirable, in my mind, to stay home than to go be social. Not to mention how desirable it is to avoid the complicated group texting, schedule checking and childcare securing that comes with trying to make plans with other moms.

Still, I can’t quell this desire to know and be known by women, to surround myself with a village of people I can love and be loved by, to be part of a community that brings meals when there are new babies and drops in unannounced and doesn’t expect a clean house.

This all crystallized in my mind as I was listening to the first season of Jen Hatmaker’s podcast, which coincidentally, is all about girlfriends. In the very first episode she talked with Shauna Niequist, a people gatherer and friendship champion. She made a comment that has been rattling around my heart since then: “The returns don’t come early in the process.”

I tend to want the quick path to friendship, because it’s what I’ve always known. In grade school and college and young-adult life, friendship springs up naturally and quickly, again, because there’s an unmatched abundance of face time and a breadth of shared experiences. I’m not yet used to the lifecycle of forming new adult friendships: planting seeds in one season, watering them in another, tending carefully to the tiny sprouts and protecting the plants at all costs when storms or cold fronts hit. I’m not used to reaping a harvest months or years later, but for the sake of community, I have to give it a try.

If I want rich friendships a year, five years, 10 years from now, it’s going to take some daily work on my part.

I’m still at the beginning of this—and I feel a bit like I’m about to throw some spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks—but these are a few things I’m going to try now, hoping to see a return someday.

I hope these ideas feel accessible for you, too, and that you’ll join me in this attempt to rebuild the village so many of us are missing.

1. Be consistent

Text encouragement to one friend each day, starting over every week or two. Ask simple questions about what’s going on in her life, and then follow up on those things.

2. Start where you are

Invite a friend to come along when you need to get out of the house—whether it’s to take your kids to the park or make a Target run.

3. Go first

Offer up a part of your week that was hard or a struggle you’re having at work, not as a means of venting, but as a means of being vulnerable and inviting your friend into your mess. Ask for her perspective and wisdom. Then thank her for it.

4. Share

Do you have maternity clothes that are collecting dust or some baby toys you’re ready to donate? Offer to lend them to a friend. It seems so small, but as my friend Rachel says, these offerings build a truly shared life.

5. Create an open invitation

Routines and regularly schedule plans are a mom’s best friend. The first Sunday of every month (or whatever works for you), have an ongoing open invitation for dessert and wine at your house (or pasta or games or adult coloring with soothing music and no kids). Thanks to my smart Instagram friend Emily for this tip!

Finally, in whatever you do and wherever you interact with people—on Instagram, at the park, at school pick-up or at work—make it your mission to encourage someone everywhere you go. Each life-giving word is a brick as we build our village. 


This post originally appeared on Motherly.

After college friendships fade, it can feel nearly impossible to make new friends as an adult, especially if you're a parent. These 5 strategies will help you overcome loneliness, find friends, and care for others well.

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Filed Under: Relationships Tagged With: choices, community, friendship, habits, motherhood

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brittanylbergman

Brittany L. Bergman
✔️ Kamala shirt ✔️ Kamala pearls ✔️ Ka ✔️ Kamala shirt
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It’s a great day to witness the shattering of a glass ceiling, to embrace empathy and decency, and to breathe a collective sigh of relief.

The work is only just beginning, but today, we celebrate. Congratulations, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris! 👏🏼🎉💙
What a beautiful, exhausting, festive, heartbreaki What a beautiful, exhausting, festive, heartbreaking, cozy, chaotic-but-strangely-quiet Christmas we had. ✨🎄✨

That’s a wrap for me on 2020—I’ll be off social media until sometime in January. May you be filled with peace and hope as we close this year but still wait for the close of this chapter in our history. 💜
I have faced Christmases full of grief and loss; d I have faced Christmases full of grief and loss; depression and rage; exhaustion and loneliness. But I can honestly say this is the weariest Christmas I can remember. I say that not to shine a spotlight on me, but to say that I have a feeling this might be your experience too. I’m with you.
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And so the words to my favorite Christmas hymn hit me different this year. They resonate in a place much deeper, more tender and true than ever before. I rejoice in the giggles of my meltdown-prone child. I rejoice in stolen moments alone in the dark, the room lit only by the glow of the Christmas tree. I rejoice in every video and every social media post I see of a frontline worker receiving the COVID vaccine, our ticket out of this nightmare. I rejoice in the vision that next Christmas might look more familiar than this one does. I rejoice in the hope of Christ, whose universal, creative, motherly love holds the whole universe together.
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On this Christmas Eve, I’ll leave you with this quote from Howard Thurman. I hope these words bring a slant of light to your day.
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“The symbol of Christmas—what is it? It is the rainbow arched over the roof of the sky when the clouds are heavy with foreboding. It is the cry of life in the newborn babe when, forced from its mother’s nest, it claims its right to live. It is the brooding Presence of the Eternal Spirit making crooked paths straight, rough places smooth, tired hearts refreshed, dead hopes stir with newness of life. It is the promise of tomorrow at the close of every day, the movement of life in defiance of death, and the assurance that love is sturdier than hate, that right is more confident than wrong, that good is more permanent than evil.”
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Whatever and however you celebrate at this time of year, I’m sending you all my love and peace. 💫
I found my Christmas spirit this weekend, just in I found my Christmas spirit this weekend, just in the nick of time.

I baked cookies with Selah without getting frustrated (first time ever?), took the kids on drive to see Christmas lights, and wrapped a bunch of gifts.

But here’s what I think did the trick, and please do steal this idea (because I stole it from someone else but have no idea who): Magical Movie Night™️.

On Saturday night, I stealthily placed a golden ticket under Selah’s pillow (which I printed from the internets and colored quickly with a yellow marker; good enough is good enough for Magical Movie Night!). We put Eamon to bed and got Selah ready for bed too, going through all the normal motions of brushing teeth, putting on pajamas, picking out a book. When we climbed into bed, I told her to look under her pillow.

She was confused when she found the ticket, and I told her it was for a Christmas movie night. “When?” she asked. “Right now!” I said. “What do you mean ‘right now’?” When it dawned on her that she was going to stay up past her bedtime to have a special movie night with Mommy and Daddy (sans Eamon), she lost her mind with excitement.

Bonus: Gramma was waiting downstairs with a bag of popcorn and Swedish Fish!

We snuggled under blankets, turned on Elf, and laughed our festive butts off. (This was her first time watching Elf, and it felt like the dawning of a new era. It’s such a big kid movie! And she loved it! Hold me. 😭)

Deck the halls, bring on Christmas, fill my mug with holly jolly goodness. 

I also acknowledge this has been a crappy year in so many ways, and I know many of you are not going to be able to access Christmas cheer this year. That’s okay. The real spirit of Christmas is light breaking through the dark, love making a way, and the beauty that can’t help seeping through the dirty, messy, horribly human moments of our lives. So you’re covered.

(And if you want to fake it ’til you make it, give Magical Movie Night a try. It’s the actual easiest.)
In which I couldn’t come up with a clever captio In which I couldn’t come up with a clever caption. There are signs of life but my brain is dead. 💀
“This is what I find most mystifying about Adven “This is what I find most mystifying about Advent: the period of waiting ultimately ends in great joy, but we can’t get to that great joy without intense, active, unbearable pain. In Advent we sense the mingling of anticipation and anxiety, excitement and disappointment, joy and pain, hope and fear.
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“On this side of history, we have the luxury of waiting with great hope, great joy, and great expectation. We know Jesus will be born, we know he will save us and redeem us, we know he will die and rise again, and we know he will set all things right one day.
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“But before Christ came, Advent was dark. It was lonely and unknown, as the Israelites waited in faith to hear from God, and all they got was… nothing. Silence.
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“Isn’t this more characteristic of the waiting we usually do? The waiting seasons of our lives are less often marked by joy and hope and more often marked by pain and fear. They are not often cozy or comforting but difficult and dark and even laborious.
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“We wait as a pregnant mother waits for her child to be born—there’s a vision of the joy to come, to be sure, but in the throes of gut-wrenching labor pains, we think we might actually die before we see that joy fulfilled. After a long season of pregnancy, when the fullness of time has arrived, the advent of labor ushers in the real period of waiting—and it is active and painful and raw.”
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// From “In the Fullness of Time,” a new blog post on @first15. There’s a link in my bio to the whole piece, with thoughts on pregnancy, Advent, and waiting well in an exceptionally hard year. 💜 Thank you so much to @first15 for publishing this post!
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Brittany L Bergman is a for-profit blog. Any company that I collaborate with is chosen by me and fits the theme and readership of my blog. At times, posts may contain affiliate links or sponsored content, which is never at any charge to you.

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