Birmingham isn't so lonely

Ive spent roughly half my life in two cities, Mobile and Birmingham, rarely leaving Alabama for any significant amount of time.

Birmingham, for all the risks, headaches, and potholes it gives, has always felt more open than anywhere else Ive been, spatially at least.

Ive been to Manhattan and got lost in Brooklyn, refused to drive anything with more power than a pissed off weed wacker in Texas, and met a songbird in North Carolina, but somehow I can't seem to not come back here.

Its been a while now since I noticed it but I think the way to describe the ubiquitous alienation so many adults, young and not young anymore especially, feel is based on the space left between socially "unrelated" people. Its present at every bar I go to, people huddle around tables they brought a group and loners occasionally interact with each other but new bonds are rarely built in one of the few places adults go literally just to make new friends or enjoy their present ones.

Ifs amplified outside of these spaces. How many of us really know our neighbors? How many have friends at places we don't work? Do you acknowledge kids and elderly people as friends or does their social uniform take away from that? Each of these social barriers stacks to make uncrossable chasms that have people swiping day and night but having no idea how to invite someone to literally do nothing but hang around in their house and eat their food. The associated anxieties are so widespread that people (myself included) will avoid opportunities and talk their way out of contacting or making friends based on impervious walls of social decorum and expectations keeping them just out of reach no matter how badly they may need to.

In so many places I see small social networks emerge and invite people in but in just as many they become cliques that immolate themselves and leave everyone involved feeling even more alienated than before. Living in that context they run into repeated instances of harm or disappointment until eventually they sit in a bubble at a bar nursing the same beer for an hour knowing they're going to see the sun before they see a friendly face.

There's so many. All convinced the crowd they're a part of is looking for them.

I've been grateful for the things Bham has given me, but my community is definitely the most important. Even walking around in a lonely crowd, there's always going to be someone nearby that's overjoyed to see you still exist.

I hope some of yall lift your heads up and see all the friends you have right next to you