Bigger Picture Moment: Breaking in

I'm in the market for new friends. Local friends.

We've been settled in our new community for almost three months now and I'm still trying to connect with people. It's hard work.

I've been putting myself out there, kind of trolling for shared interests through play dates, church activities and hanging out in the usual mom-n-tot haunts.

So far I've made a handful of acquaintances and there are a few prospects, but no real friendships have taken hold yet.

It takes time and I need to wait patiently.

There are indeed some great benefits to making a fresh start in a place where no one knows you.

You can reinvent yourself entirely or perhaps just tweak those few things about yourself that you wish hadn't crawled into your everyday self and taken hold in your previous location.

I, for one, would like to start the new habit of putting on make-up every day, so as to drop the haggard, new-mom thing I had going on back in our previous community.

New town, new routine, new look and no one's the wiser.

Being new also has some exotic appeal.

I have a pretty good handful of conversation starters in that I've just moved to the East Coast from southern California. I'm a homeschooler and I have a pilot for a husband.

But this is the sweet season where those perks are concerned. It really won't take long for the thin veneer of what I am and where I came from to rub away and reveal the worn, dinged-up truths beneath the surface.

Then I have to fully embrace who I really am and how others might perceive those qualities.

Here, inside me are scars and gashes from childbirth, parenting, deployments and relocating so dad-gum often.

Here are imperfections -- selfishness, laziness, over-zealousness -- that have embedded themselves so deeply that they may never be sanded smooth.

Here are good things too, the kinds of stains that when they catch the sunlight, they only make the whole piece seem more refined and beautiful.

Here is the added richness of wisdom and pathos. Here are deep grooves of passion for writing, cooking and teaching.

One day soon, some of the people I run into with increasing frequency will see me. They'll really see me in all of the ordinary ways that I am me.

And maybe, someone will find something else here. Something extraordinary, or perhaps a few shared imperfections. And we will become friends.

Take a moment to check out more Bigger Picture Moments with Hyacynth and others today.