Letting Go and Leaping Forward: An Inside Look at Building and Finding Community

By: Celia Dupuy

Everyone longs to find community. That’s just a fact of life. We strive to find people to support us, to love us, and to stand behind us no matter what. We want real friends, family, and loved ones. We want a place to call home. People who are going to stay and ride out the storm with us. It’s why we are here. To make connections. To form relationships. Life is about building these relationships with the people you encounter. It’s about finding joy and security within those select, special people. Everyone you meet won’t stay in your life forever. People come and go. That’s just how it is, but that is exactly what makes life so special. You never know when a stranger is going to become one of the most important people in your life. You might meet someone one day while passing them on the street, and then the next thing you know, they are the maid of honor at your wedding…or maybe even the bride.

My name is Celia Dupuy and I am a sophomore office assistant at the Center for Leadership. Based on my personal experiences, I am going to share with you some ways that you can find and build community at Elon, at home, and after you leave this campus and step foot into the world beyond these brick walls.

I have to be honest, a lot of this is based on my personal experience, so I would not recommend that you take this and make it the official rule book to finding your people, but I can definitely give you some insight on how I found mine and how I let go of other people once I discovered that they weren’t meant for me.

I’ll start with how I realized that certain people were only there to be in a season of my life, and not forever. The reality is, I never used to be a big fan of change. Change terrified me. Change meant diving into the unknown not knowing how long it would be until I could come up for air. I let my fear of change run my life so viciously that I lost myself by drowning in the past.

Growing up, I had the same friend group from practically age 5 until 17. We did everything together. We laughed together, cried together, had fun together, and grew up together. They were there when I had my first crush, my first boyfriend, my first day of high school, my first car, and everything in between. They were by my side every day for years and years. That’s the thing though, I realized that just because people have been in your past, doesn’t mean they have to follow you into your future. I loved my friends more than anything, but as we started to grow up and form our own views and perspectives on the world, things got a bit more difficult. I found out that we had different morals and plans for our lives that didn’t align. I thought that we would be able to work through it and move forward, but over time, I realized that my dream of overcoming these differences was sadly not a plausible reality. I slowly came to see that all of my best friends were not exactly accepting of the LGBTQ+ community. At the same time, I had another life altering realization: I was gay. That dynamic clearly wasn’t going to work. I realized my friends were not really who I thought they were. They were never going to fully accept me and I was done denying myself a life of authenticity. I had to move forward and let them go. I had to choose myself over them and hope that there were better people for me out there.

There had to be. I deserved that.

Now, I’m not going to act like it was easy. Those people were my whole life. I didn’t really know what my life was like without them there by my side. I spent a large part of my senior year basically alone. What I realized during that time is that even though I had lost most of my best friends, I was the happiest I had been in years. I was living out and proud. I was meeting people who aligned with my morals and values and who were actually accepting of the person I am. I wasn’t hiding and I wasn’t trying to be someone I’m not.

That is how you find your community. You let go. You let go of the people who are holding you back. You let go of the people who are bringing you down. Your real community should be people who lift you up, and show you never ending love and support. It should be people whose morals align with yours. People that make you happy!! People who drain you are not your people. That is not your community. You don’t belong there. You don’t belong with people who make you into a lesser version of yourself. That is not love.

As I mentioned, I spent a lot of time alone after losing my childhood best friends. Luckily, I was a few months away from graduating high school so there was a big change heading my way: college. I was moving 12 hours away to a university where I knew no one. Naturally, I was terrified. Like I said, up to that point, my fear of change ran my life, but I was done running. I wasn’t drowning in my past anymore. I had to move forward. I had a blank slate.

A new start.

You can choose to change your life. That’s the beauty of it. If you don’t like where you’re headed, not only can you change your path, but you can create an entirely new one. You can make that first step like I did, by letting go.

Now that you know my little secret to letting go of what no longer serves you, I feel like I can’t just leave you hanging. You’ve let go. You want to find a community of love and support. You have freedom in front of you. Now what are you going to do with it?

When I finally got this freedom that I had been fighting for, I didn’t know what to do. How was I going to find my people?

Facebook. Yes, I’m serious, that’s how I did it. I never thought I would thank Facebook for changing my life. Nevertheless, I do thank it every day for bringing me Liv Fisher. Liv and I met on a new Elon student Facebook group. I followed her on Instagram and sent her a message saying how I saw her post on the group page and that I felt like we would get along well. We have been roommates and best friends ever since. Liv helped me dig myself out of my old life and held my hand as I created my new one. If I know one thing for sure, it’s that she will be by my side for the rest of my life. She was the start of my new community and meeting her let me know that I was going to be okay. My people were out there. She showed me that.

Facebook is definitely not the way everyone is going to find their people, that’s just my story. You get to make your own. The point is that in order to start finding and building your community, you need to reach out and make an active effort to meet new people and put yourself in situations that may be a bit out of your comfort zone. I’ve found that even the little things help foster relationships. For example, if you hear someone in one of your classes talking about their favorite TV show and the episode that you also happened to watch last night, say something! Common interests are incredibly helpful to have and discover when trying to meet new people and create new relationships. If you see a flyer for an organization that sounds interesting to you, but you don’t know anyone in it, go to the meeting anyway! All of the people there are likely to be passionate and interested in the purpose and mission of the group, just like you.

In a work environment, aiming to create a positive team atmosphere is vital to the success of the company. Get to know your coworkers beyond the team meeting you have once a month. Get coffee with them. Say hi to them while walking to class. The little things don’t go unnoticed. They can make all the difference.

This is exactly the kind of mindset and action that brought me the rest of my people. After Liv, I met my next friend through work and then we met each other's roommates and friends, and on and on. They are all still my best friends, and I am thankful for them every single day.

I’m only 19, so I obviously don’t know everything about how to find and build community, but I do know that you’re not going to find it by looking in the wrong places. You can’t force something that isn’t meant to be. You can’t fuel a connection or a relationship that burns you out, and you don’t want to leave yourself trapped in one that isn’t serving you. Your community should be one where you feel supported, loved, and understood. That’s what you deserve. Unconditional love.

So go out, and take a bold leap of faith. Someday, someone will catch you.