Today I celebrated the third birthday of my most beloved local community group, yak'n'yarn. What's a yak'n'yarn, you say? Well, it's a crafting group where we chit chat and we craft. It turns out those two things are extremely conducive to building community.
Or maybe we just put the work in? But all I know is when I put out there "hey I'm looking for X, can anyone help me?", these folks are ride or die. It doesn't matter if it's a knitting pattern, carpet scraps, or jumping my car battery. I've never had that kind of community before in my life and y'all...I LOVE it.
It's not just about what I get from the community either. It feels so good to be there for people. Oh you helped me with something? let me mend a shirt for you. Oh you need help with your car? I got you. You need to take your dog to the opthamalogist and your car is in the shop? borrow mine.
In the last 3 years, I have laughed, cried, hugged, struggled, raged, and helped with these people in ways I never imagined and never thought possible. They have taught me what it means to belong to a community and I cannot thank them enough for that, but also I know they would probably say no thanks needed because that's just what we do.
Anyway, this crafting group that meets twice a month is everything to me and I can't believe its been 3 whole years of having them in my life. I'm so grateful for all of them and I can't wait to spend many more years with them, celebrating birthdays and holding each other on the bad days.