As I sat on my mat and watched the yoga studio steadily fill with more and more Alo- and LuLu-clad bodies, each one seemingly fitter and tanner than the last, I gulped. Chatting animatedly with one another, the fellow yogis created a buzzing, rising din. Surely this many people to one room was a fire hazard.

I looked down at my outfit, something I would have described as “playful” when I put it on that morning. Now, among stunningly beautiful men and women all in the same trendy, dark-colored yoga uniform, the more fitting word seemed androgynous. Or, tom man (a grown tomboy). The voices of adult women who spoke disapprovingly at my tomboyish-ness as a kid resurfaced, taunting me: lesbian. Dress more feminine. More appropriately. For your age. Your gender. Suddenly, I was hit by a wave of burning self-consciousness, now loathing my navy biker shorts, teal sports bra, and day-three hair tossed up carelessly in a scrunchie. A scrunchie. I’m reminded of Carrie Bradshaw chaffing Jack Berger for includihng his novel that his protagonist wore a scrunchie (which he probably deserved.)

Why? I thought wanly. Why do I dress like a genderless child? Already I was mentally planning the voice text to a friend after class, already planning how I would mercilessly roast myself. Self-roasting is one of my favorite daily activities.

Surrounded by beautiful people in beautiful clothes propped up in beautiful yoga poses, I was painfully aware that I’d mis-dressed for the occasion. Yoga class or not, these folks showed up to work, to enslave their bodies to torturous workouts in order to remain the city’s fittest and hottest, but also to be seen. Admired. Envied.

My panic rising, our yoga teacher walked in and shut the door behind him, and I thought, I hadn’t realized Scott Eastwood had a gay cousin. (Naming celebrity lookalikes…it’s a gift. I claim the small wins where I can.) He opened his mouth and from behind gleaming white teeth, out rippled a low baritone voice, instructing us to shift into child’s pose, to set our intentions for class. The only intention I could grasp was whether I would stay where I was—frozen in fear—, or sheepishly pick up my mat and exit in silence, apologetically, in supplication, begging silent forgiveness for the intrusion to a place I clearly did not belong. The room was now quite packed, mere inches between our mats. For those of us who’d skipped a day shaving, streaked our self-tanner, or chipped our toe nail polish, our neighbors were certainly close enough to tell. This close together, nary a morning breath would exhale unnoticed. Great.

Now, contrary to this socially fraught scene, I actually do have relatively decent self-confidence. I have a good relationship with my body, and many areas of my life (faith, marriage, career, friendships) give me a solid sense of purpose. One of my greater areas of personal growth has been learning to speak up for myself. Say, when I’ve chosen that today will be the day I will calmly define what “mansplaining” to a bewildered/defensive male coworker (“womansplain”?) and gently point out that this is what he does, to me, on a regular basis.

Nevertheless, for the first time in my life, I came very close considered quietly folding up my mat and excusing myself, full of shame, though not fully understanding why. I had unwittingly booked Hot Yoga for Hot People, Chicago’s hotbed for its most eligible SINKs (single income no kids), DINKs (double income no kids), SINKWADs (double income no kids with a dog), and DINKWADS (you get the picture). Super Hot Girls mingled with Super Fit Guys. These were people with cool jobs in trendy warehouse offices at Google and Salesforce, who went to happy hour at places like Rosemary and Gilt Bar, which served craft cocktails and had long reservation lists. These men wore expensive watches (Apple Watches here in yoga, obvs) and the women accessorized tastefully, either old-money quite luxurious or subtly trendy, or a combination of both. The highlights were fresh and the fades were sharp. These high-earning go-getters were here to *serve*, at their kickass jobs AND doing headstands in yoga class.

I could not do headstands, nor did I have a cool job at the time. I might as well have had a neon I DO NOT BELONG HERE sign blinking madly on my forehead. Images of Kristin Wiig’s frightening tiny hands character from the Lawrence Welk Show sketch on Saturday Night Live came to mind. Which of these is not like the other? I sensed somewhere deep inside me—whether somewhere intrinsically, or simply from an unwelcome place of insecurity—that everyone would smell it on me: my outcast-ness. My otherness.

Begrudgingly, I convinced myself to stay, reasoning that to pack up my things and leave a full (and clearly highly sought-after) class, thus wasting a spot, would attract more disdain and dirty looks than staying put in my offensively mismatching “woutfit”. After all, I’d walked nearly an hour from our condo to this studio to arrive on time for an 8 o’clock yoga class, on a Saturday, no less. The least I could do for myself was reap the same benefits from a punishing “Flow 2.0” as everyone else—bouncy ponytail and ripped abs, or not.

What ensued, I found, was well worth the stay: not only did I sweat away every last toxin from my system, I felt accomplished, even proud of myself, drenched as I was. I even chatted with a few people after class, and made a new friend of one of them, Super Fit Guy #9, to my left. We talked real estate after class and started following each other on Instagram. He invited me to another yoga class at another studio, this time in my neighborhood (bless), and introduced me to two other friends of his, with whom I somewhat trauma bonded for the most grueling workout class I’ve ever taken in my life (Carmilla at West Loop Corepower…not for the faint of heart).

~~~~~~~

You might be wondering what direction I would eventually bring this story…it certainly could have launched into any range of subject matter relevant to a newly married, child-free metropolite working professional like me. But this memory is an apt depiction of what it looks like to start over as an adult moving between cities. Often, you find yourself alone, perhaps feeling lonely, even in a public space that you have every right to be in. But the anxiety of being (or at least, feeling like) the new person is very real—even in a large city, where the odds are highest that many of your urbanite peers are also “the new person”.

The irony is, I’ve done this before. More than once, with great success. Why is it still scary?

When I moved cities in North Carolina shortly before turning twenty-five (Raleigh to Winston-Salem, which felt like a whole world apart), I’d reached a new low in my life. My nearly three-year relationship had ended (as did the rebound I’d had shortly thereafter), one week before moving into my new apartment, for which I’d just signed a 15-month lease. I was starting a new PR job and navigating the shaky ground of operating on a newly-hired three-person team. Aside from my ex (ha), I knew no one else in town. I’d left a city that I loved, and felt, for the first time, genuinely sad to move. For reasons I didn’t yet have language for, I felt like I was reeling, with no brakes to slow down what had become a nauseating roller coaster pace of life events. I couldn’t see where my circumstances ended and where my own decisions within them began.

As I stood in my echoey, empty new apartment, I had two choices: wallow in self-pity and shrink into panic and defeat, or make the most of my new life and see how it went. Figuring I had nothing to lose and everything to gain, I chose the latter. And because of what followed, I am forever high-fiving my younger self for making this brave choice.

Despite my bleak start, I quickly made friends. Great friends, actually. I found close guy friends who looked out for me in an endearingly brotherly way, and solid women in my same season of life. My own natural adaptability and determination had gotten me far enough for most of my life. This time, though, the timing of meeting a few well-connected friends and arriving to town when a gaggle of other twenty-somethings did, who were also keen to meet new friends, leapfrogged my life from murky and miserable to bustling, joyful, and wildly fun. It was a year of healing and tremendous personal growth. This motley crew of men and women across different churches, backgrounds, hometowns and careers, forged a new friend group, unexpectedly, organically, beautifully.

The next year would become (and remains) one of the best years of my life. I learned to restore faith in good men through good male friendships. I found solace and hope in older mentors who poured into me when I badly needed their wisdom. And I met incredible women whom I found to be supportive, kind, spontaneous, creative, ambitious, and some of the loudest laughers I’ve ever met—my favorite unsung quality in close friends.

When I made the difficult decision to move again, this time to D.C. for a job, these same friends threw me the best goodbye party I could have ever wished for. A lot of the same guys who’d helped me carry in furniture and hang wall decor when I moved in, then helped me pack up my moving truck with my parents when I moved out.

My biggest fear of moving, besides leaving behind such great friends? The awful prospect of not finding new ones. Oh ye of little faith.

With the same determination spirit, emboldened by my success last time, I did the same thing when I arrived to D.C. I said yes to several dates, got involved in my new church, and entered each night out with an open mind and energy to meet any new people we encountered. Six months after I moved to town, I met someone—with a wry sense of humor, a sharp wit, and aspiration of law school—whom I would marry two years later.

I did it again in Durham in 2021, and I’ve done it again (/am doing it again) in Chicago in 2023. Jake and I are approaching our six-month mark here, relishing the chance to build a new life in a city that we’ve both picked together.

When I invited four of my new friends here out to brunch one weekend, four of who are becoming my closest friends here, one of them said this: “You attract the best people.” That stuck with me. Do I? What’s my secret? I wish someone would tell me.

I think the answer is where I’ve arrived: I’m proud of who I am. I’m more self-aware now than I have ever been. I’m more comfortable with not being liked by everyone (but I do still want my barista at my favorite corner cafe to like me, that matters more than it should). Now thirty-one, I have new physical limitations that mean I can’t indulge in the same things I used to. But instead of resenting them, I’ve learned to reframe them. Yes, I know all too well how crappy it feels to bloat after ordering the cheeseburger for dinner (even if, for my entire life beforehand, it’s never once affected me).

But I also relish how good it feels to take a deep breath in the middle of my day. It makes me want to ask whoever is nearby if they know how good it feels to take a deep breath, whenever you want. People think I’m joking, or being odd. But I mean it. It’s true that I have never held tension or stress more intensely in my physical body than I do now in my thirties. But I’ve also never savored how satisfying it feels to breathe deeply, stretch, move. (My new favorite nighttime ritual is laying on this acupuncture mat while I watch TV. It looks like a torture device, but it is a gift from Jesus Christ himself, as I’m pretty sure he delivered it in an Amazon uniform and sent it off with heaps of blessings.)

And in the moments where I am self-conscious, at times I remember that even the LuLu yogi queens with abs and $600-color melts had to start somewhere, have their own insecurities. And I remember that all of us crave community—some of us, more aware of this than others. And while I allow myself to feel what I feel, I try to chide myself less for wanting a God-given desire: belonging. If we don’t find that sense of belonging right away, the answer is not to berate ourselves for wanting it. When it comes to seeking belonging, accepting your need for it, patience as you seek it, and tenacity until you find it go a remarkably long way.