Now, today, the site prompt is “In what ways do you communicate online?” and that fits very nicely with why I opened my computer to write this morning. This is not the silly snacks conversation, this communication topic cuts to the heart of who we are as human beings.

Sometimes, I can’t sleep. After finding a bedtime routine that was working (first, reading a chapter or 3 of a book I like, then laying like spoons with the Angel for a few minutes, and I seem to drift off immediately, mostly sleeping through the night), I apparently decided to change that up, for whatever thoughtless reason. Last night’s great idea was to scroll through Instagram for a half an hour, then turn the light off and…what exactly did I think would happen? Laughing at NFL memes and cat videos isn’t conducive to anyone’s winding down process. Usually I don’t even take my phone into the bedroom, but last night, I did.

So, I was downstairs eating a bowl of cereal, watching People’s Court on YouTube for an hour, then to bed, only to wake up with a splitting headache a couple of hours later. My watch says I slept for 3 hours with no “deep” sleep. Maybe those things aren’t to be trusted, but I feel like I slept 3 hours with no deep sleep, so maybe in this instance it’s accurate.

Anyway, I was up watching a board game documentary on Amazon, called The Hobby: Tales From The Tabletop. (There apparently is another doc called just The Hobby, which concerns the trading card industry. This is a confusing coincidence, if it’s not related, but also interesting.) This doc is about people who love modern board gaming. I say “modern,” because it’s not Monopoly or Life. Instead, these games are complicated stories that have instruction booklets that are pages & pages long. It’s much more D & D than Scrabble, more Call of Duty than Pac-Man. There are tournaments and role-playing. It’s the kind of subculture that I just love; it reminds me of the absolute treasure that was Chicken People.

It like the wide, wild, world of sexual fetishes, without the NSFW element. They exist, hidden in plain sight, and are totally overlooked. And the more I discover, the more I realize remain below the surface. There really is something for everyone.

But when I watch these documentaries, it is further evidence that, as the Bible says, “it is not good for man to be alone.” We are made to be together – whether here, in blogs, online communities, chat rooms and message boards, or in churches, clubs, cults, groups, and arenas. There are countless spaces we’ve created to connect, and it doesn’t matter how or when, or how odd it is to me, I am thrilled when each of us finds our people.

This desire drives almost every action, no matter how small. Who we do “it” with is mostly more important that the “it” we do, but the “it” is the beacon that draws us together. I’m not going to the “Wingspan” world Championships, but I certainly would go to a Morrissey convention or a baseball game or a Sunday morning service. We’re all weirdos looking for other weirdos to move through & make this life more beautiful, and when we find them, we hold on tightly. Or we should hold on tightly.

Life can be long and hard and it can hurt like crazy sometimes, we should all have a hand to hold, a person who gets down in the dirt next to us when we’re mourning – we should all have people to love and be loved by. AND a person to play “Sagrada” or “Blood Rage” with, if that’s your kind of thing.