I thought I knew what community was.
I’ve talked about it a lot on my podcast. About building the soda fountain, rallying people in a sleepy Wyoming town, and showing up in a place where there aren’t a lot of people exactly like me.
But as it turns out? I didn’t understand it at all.
When it came to grasping the essence of real community, I was still in kindergarten. The last three weeks have made that painfully clear.
Ironically, these revelations came at the exact moment I feared losing my community altogether. Telling the world about my divorce felt so terrifying that the fear of it kept me stuck longer than I should have been.
Yet the very thing I feared most has left me speechless in the best of ways.
Which doesn’t mean every person has been lovely and gracious. There have certainly been some clunkers.
A few people have said ridiculous things. Some have offered patronizing advice that makes me want to punch a wall. A handful have pulled away.
All of that was expected.
But what I didn’t expect was how so many others in this tiny Wyoming town—and far beyond it—have shown up for me in ways I can’t even type about without crying.
Texts from people I haven’t talked to in years.
The local coffee guys sneaking into the kitchen at the soda fountain to check on me.
Quiet hugs and hands on my shoulder.
Women looking me straight in the eye and saying, “It gets easier. You will be okay.”
Multiple offers to help without demanding details first.
I’m well aware that people tend to appear out of the woodwork when there’s gossip or trouble. But these folks are different. They’re not offering help in that vague, performative way people sometimes do when things fall apart. They’ve shown up in ways that are real and deeply human.
And that’s the part that has undone me the most.
I’ve always prided myself on being strong. I’m good at being steady. I know how to be steady.
But right now?
I don’t feel steady.
There’s a specific kind of vulnerability that comes when life removes your ability to polish the edges. When the thing you’re walking through can’t be dressed up in fancy clothes or easy platitudes. It’s uncomfortable and humbling and disorienting.
But in the midst of that exposure, something in me has cracked wide open. The walls have come down and I’ve realized real community lives on the other side of those walls.
The messy, holy, take-your-breath-away kind of community.
I’ve had some of the most raw and healing conversations of my life the past few weeks. Most of them have been with people who have been in my periphery for years, but we’ve never really connected.
Now suddenly, something real has opened between us.
One honest thing cracked the surface.
Then another.
Then another.
As I have shared my vulnerabilities (with people who feel safe and have earned the right to hear my story, of course…) they, in turn, have shared their own innermost struggles, fears, and tender places with me.
Not because I am steady or wise or polished, but because I showed I was human. And somehow that gave them permission to admit their humanness, too.
There’s a Steinbeck line that keeps coming to mind:
“And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good.”
I can’t stop thinking about it.
Back in my ultra-holy church-girl days, I prided myself on being one of those shiny, perfect people. That’s who we were trained to be. “Don’t ever make a mistake. Be a good witness. Never let your cracks show.”
And as a result, I preferred being around other shiny, perfect people too—the ones following the same formula as me, with the prescribed paths, tidy outcomes, and A + B = C lives.
We sang about grace on Sunday mornings but I surely didn’t understand it. The rules and formulas were what we actually lived and died by.
I’ve been untangling from that for over a decade and I’m not that person anymore. However as I’ve shared on my podcast, something began to shift in me even more deeply over the last eighteen months, thanks to the soda fountain.
Somewhere between the coffee refills and the back-room conversations and the stories folks tell me while I’m chopping onions, I started to realize my favorite people are rarely the shiny ones.
I’ve come to adore folks with scars.
The ones who have seen some things and lived some life.
The ones who haven’t always made the “right” choices or taken the prescribed path.
The ones who understand that this journey is never tidy or formulaic.
The ones who have been broken open enough to become gentle.
The ones who walk with a bit of a limp from life’s journey.
Perfection keeps us separate. It may make us impressive, but it does not make us known.
That’s the piece I missed before—that true community isn’t only about showing up for others. Sometimes it’s about doing the much harder thing:
To receive. To need. To stop being the steady one for a minute. To allow ourselves to be held. And I suspect that reciprocity is where the real magic happens.
And now, I suppose, I walk with a limp too.
Not the kind I would have chosen. (But when do we ever really choose our scars?)
Not the kind the old version of me would have approved of (16 year-old perfect Jill would be SO horrified right now…)
But the kind that says I’ve lived through some things and come out with a few scuffs.
And I welcome that. I suspect it will make me softer. More tender. More able to recognize the other limping people a little faster.
And maybe that is its own strange, full-circle kind of grace.
-Jill
P.S. I’m in the thick of moving and buried in boxes and chaos, but I’ll tell you more about my new little homestead next week.
Once again, great perspective Jill! So much here to chew on… I guess I can really only speak for myself but I think those in your support corner in all this are far greater then those that are not… 🙂 Appreciate you!
Many hugs and blessings
Jill, things will get easier. I am so happy to hear that your community is coming out to support you through this time. I have no advice, but I’ll keep you in my prayers. God knows what you have faced and what you need. He loves the broken ones, so I believe he’s right there with you. Take care of yourself, and love yourself.
I’ve followed your content for many years, and I will continue to as long as you continue providing new content. Looking forward to your future plans.
Thank you for sharing yourself. It has given me hope. I have felt so disconnected lately and you have reminded of a better way to live. Thank you.
We are all scarred, and none of us are perfect. That is why community is so important. It connects us to shared values and culture. It gives us practical help and emotional support during the hard times. This is what you are learning. All of us need it some time in our life. It also gives us courage to help someone else because we “have been there”.
Blessings.