EmbraceTypos

My mental framework surrounding community has undergone a permanent shift over the past six years. Moving abroad and living in multiple countries challenged a core tenet of community for me, which is: consistency & proximity.

While I’ve had deep, powerful & impactful connections with people wherever I’ve gone, they’ve been challenged by what all relationships need, and that’s proximity. When I move or explore a new country, the dynamic and intensity of my newly formed and intense friendships ebb and flow over time, and I often crave consistency.

If I’m being fully honest, one of the toughest parts of living in & exploring so many different countries is the emotional start and stop of the relationships with people I feel so close to.

Whether it was my gym buddy in Thailand, a close friend I hiked with in Mexico, or friends I made in London who showed me around the city, when I left, the dynamic shifted. Around year 4 of being abroad, I realized that we don’t all have time for the constant phone or text message updates across different time zones. And this is where I’ve recently learned to insert social media to fill that gap. Moving around frequently shifted my perspective on social media.

When it comes to connecting with people, I’m what you might call a purist lol. I prefer honest and intense connections with the people I share time and space with. Coming from a close-knit family with strong principles regarding community and self-love, I prefer radical honesty with the people I share time with.

As for my friends, I’d like to know where you stand on deep concepts and topics that may normally divide people.

And even if we disagree, I’m drawn to folks who have a profound understanding and connection to the roots of their personal opinions & beliefs.

That may be one of the most attractive features of a person’s personality, the ability to know why.

In the Spring of 2024, and for the first time in half a decade, I visited my family in Brooklyn for a few months. And during that trip home, I reconnected with my community in Brooklyn. Most of the major figures were still there: my family, childhood friends, and college study buddies.

When you are away, traveling to dozens of countries in just a few years, you feel that the world is also moving at this lightning speed pace, but in reality, it may only be you who is rapidly changing. However, most things pretty much stay the same. Aside from the rapid gentrification in my local neighborhood, Brooklyn was just how I left it.

The tension I’m feeling now is learning how to integrate this new version of Angaza with the community that knew the old one: the explosive athlete who dreamed of making it as a pro basketball player, or the first-year medical student chasing an MD.

Now, I’m the one who likes hiking in nature in a country I’ve just arrived in, or water fasting during a new moon to ground myself. The new Angaza loves biking in a new city to explore its boundaries or camping and eating raw food for a few days in nature. Presently, I’m the Angaza who loves editing photos and videos for fun or writing in my daily journal to sort through feelings that I need to work through. The Angaza I’ve been in the past decade loves tracking health metrics as a hobby.

Maybe deep down, there’s a feeling of being unsettled with sharing new versions of myself with people who knew the old version of me.  

There’s been so much in me that’s new and different that’s come up over the last decade since withdrawing from medical school. There’re so many sides to me that I desire to share with the people I care about, with my community, and to be honest, I don’t know how.

This blog, sharing on social media, opening up, and just getting stuff out there, is a first step toward making it more of my norm. Allowing the new and old me to exist as one. Not choppy versions that persist based on whichever environment I’m in.

So, the recent surprise is that I’ve had to change how I engage with social media, and I’ve found it to become a become a useful tool in self-expression.

In my normal opinion, social media fundamentally disconnects people. The convenience of access limits the natural flow and consequences of being a present participant in a relationship.

But I’ve had to shelf those feelings, and I’m slowly letting them go, to see how social media can serve this newer version of me. It gives me the ability to go into more depth than to just post photos of a week-long vacation, or a plate of food at a new restaurant, I can do more, like create a video that is meticulously edited (without a template lol) to make a friend I made in South Africa feel my current cycling experience. I can write a blog post like this to share with my close friends in Mexico City, so they can know what I’ve been up to lately. Or I can create a short video series about a new hobby I got into to send to my Thai family that I miss so deeply.

This is a strange time to live in lol, but I’m doing my best to lean into this different version of community, and to work with it as opposed to hiding in a shell. I’m excited to keep finding new ways to express myself and to accept the challenge that comes with it.

hope you enjoyed reading this and eMbracE tYpos…