A Letter For The Village
4 Years of Building the Village of Hooligans
4 years ago, 7 months into COVID and trying to survive living in a 980 sq ft house with an infant and a 6 yr old, we bought a new house in a new neighborhood.
We were lacking space but most of all we were lacking community.
At the time we had just one family member living near us, my mother-in-law, and had little other support around us. Not that we didn’t have great friends and people in our lives, we just didn’t have it accessible enough or close enough.
COVID really exposed that. We felt alone, like many did, and vulnerable.
When we first visited the potential new house for a showing we pulled up and parked across the street. When we did a woman walked out of the house we parked in front of, sort of meandered down towards us, and we started up a convo.
“Hey, how’s the neighborhood? Do you have kids? Are there more kids around here?”
The answer we got was something along the lines of
Yes, it’s great, lots more kids, you’ll love it, you should buy the house
The house was kind of sold before we even walked in. That’s all we really needed to hear. We were yearning for those answers.
So we yolo’d everything, figured out how to get this house and got it.
The keys were ours like a week before thanksgiving. We had to do some fixes right away and so for a couple weeks we all slept together on the floor in the basement. When Thanksgiving rolled around we didn’t even have our kitchen stuff unpacked yet.
What happened next? Our neighbor across the street, the one who came and talked to us before we bought the house, brought us over a Thanksgiving meal.
Like manna from heaven.
But I’m not talking about the food - it was the sentiment.
We got you
Their family recognized that we probably didn’t have the ability to make Thanksgiving dinner and that we didn’t leave to a family member’s house. They proactively provided support.
That’s what a community does. A village.
That set the stage for what has happened over the last 4 years - we built a village.
One that actively seeks to proactively support and care for each other. This village is slowly expanding over time, right now it’s probably 8 families and 35+ humans. We live within walking distance to each other.
We make each other dinners, watch and feed each others’ kids (they increasingly are watching each other as they roam around the hood and get older), borrow each others’ vehicles, help get groceries, work through hard times, cheer in joyous times, and commune and have parties.
I’m writing this because today is our holiday party for the Village. It’s at our house (we love hosting - Bri is the queen social gatherer), it’s gonna be fun and festive and full of love.
It’s a celebration really of what we’ve built together.
Here’s the thing - it’s so hard.
It takes lots of work, emotion, late nights/early mornings, communication, chaos, energy, etc.
It takes all the things that life takes.
Which means its messy and frustrating and joyous and all the things.
But it’s all worth it. It’s up and to the right over time. The experiences and support compounds. The relationships get stronger and more life giving as long as we keep committed to the village and all the things that go with it.
I’m more proud of what we’ve built than anything else in my life.
The Hillcrest Hooligans we call ourselves.
I’m so grateful for all the Hooligans. I love you all dearly.
With deep love and appreciation,
-Andrew
A true labor of love in any relationship worth having. ♡