Unfortunately, community will inconvenience tf out of you

I can rarely recount times I’ve been in spaces I’ve hosted for community involvement, attended an event held by local community, or showed up to these spaces prepared, fully energized, and with a lot of capacity. Mind you, I’ve been in movement spaces since I was 17, I’m 27 now.

I’ve been inconvenienced more than I’ve been freshly prepared and ready for holding all of what comes with being in community. I wish I had a better answer for you, but you will never be entirely ready, or in a well rounded mindset of knowledge, or in perfect human presentation, to be in space with your people. And to be honest, most of the time no one expects that from you either. Also, oftentimes events and spaces will be held at inconvenient times: after work late in the day, on your day off, on the weekends, etc. It will not be a perfectly curated space, nor will it always be a reflection of the structural institutions you’re used to.

Keep in mind that many organized efforts by marginalized identities you see here in America are relatively new to structured formats and practices to be presentable in ways you’re used to, so they are still somewhat in the process of being improved and functional, so you need to have that mindset when attending such spaces.

Community spaces will require you to sometimes stretch your capacity and give it more than you’ve got.

I don’t want this message to say you’re supposed to run yourself raggedy for the sake of proving you care about your neighbor and local efforts. I do, however, want to encourage you to figure out what your “inconvenience” threshold is. Because if you’re just an average human not involved in organizing and you feel inconvenienced, think about those of us who have to be present in this, day and night.

Now, I am very happy I’ve chosen this lane of purpose work, supporting mothers and families in need and now also helping other organizers build systems and frameworks to sustain their communities, but it doesn’t mean I don’t ever feel inconvenienced, or like I’m not stretching myself further than my body and spirit are yelling at me for (that’s a conversation for another day I’d certainly like to have with other Black women and femmes... sigh), but I want you to know you will unfortunately have to do some things you don’t really want to do.

Again, I wish I had a better strategy for you, something super efficient and organized, that fits neatly into the many other things we’re told to do on the internet to be a stable, healthy, and happy human.

So, some ways you can make this somewhat enjoyable, or at least survivable:

• Bring something with you, food, a folding chair, a friend, anything that makes the space feel a little more like yours and a little less like an obligation you’re clocking into.

• Give yourself permission to leave early sometimes. Showing up for the first couple hours still counts. It still means something, even if you can’t give the whole night.

• Pick your seasons. You don’t have to be present for every single effort your community is holding, you can choose the two or three that actually matter most to you and give those your full self, instead of spreading yourself so thin across everything that you resent all of it.

• And honestly, get to know the people actually organizing. Befriend them, if you can. See the humanity in us, not just the role, not like we’re machines built to hold space and produce outcomes. When you actually know someone behind the effort, you start feeling connected to it in a different way, and you find yourself wanting it to thrive too, not out of obligation, but because you can see the potential in it, the impact it’s already having, and you want to be part of that becoming sustainable.

I reallyyy wish I could tell you there’s a clear system for this, something that makes it efficient and stress free and easy to slot into everything else the internet tells us we’re supposed to be doing to stay stable and healthy. There isn’t. Community was never going to be convenient to show up in, given the current circumstances we’re all under. It wasn’t built to be. It was built to hold us, and holding takes something out of you every single time. What I want for you is not to avoid that cost, but to know it’s coming, and to figure out how much of it you can actually give without disappearing into it. Show up imperfect. Show up tired. Show up anyway. That’s always been the whole thing.