I move.

A lot.

Not like out of my chair and active kind of move (that would just be insane)… more along the lines of I can’t take this town/house/state another another miserable day, where the hell did I put my packing tape kind of move.

Sometimes, I look around at all of the boxes and bubble wrap and various knick knacks that are lucky to have survived this long and think that life would be so much easier on everyone if I’d just brush up on my dancing skills and buy a traveling show wagon already.

(Yes, dear reader, I just threw in a Cher reference. If this is your first time here, I feel obligated to warn you that such an occurrence happens quite often around these parts… and if Cher references don’t equal downright awesomeness in your book, well… then… I’m afraid that there’s just no hope for you. Which is sad. ‘Cause I totally thought you looked like my kind of people when you walked in.)

Some moves are big.

Some moves are small.

Some moves are planned.

Some are holyshitdidIreallyjustmovethreestatesawayon24hournotice.

And some moves, those of the worst kind, land me smack-dab in the middle of rural Arkansas, off the beaten path of two obnoxiously long dirt roads, 40 minutes away from the nearest superstore, and 120 miles away from the nearest Starbucks. (I’d like to assure you that I didn’t land there barefoot and pregnant… but I totally did and was and good lord, what was I thinking?)

Granted, there were no banjos playing in the background (those came when I moved to Alabama a few years later), but the cable reception was terrible and there was no alcohol (being a southern Louisiana girl and bred for lush-hood right out of the gate, I had no idea that things like ‘dry counties’ even existed… boy, was I ever in for a surprise). Needless to say, I got myself knocked up again shortly thereafter… well.. because…

Quite frankly, there was nothing else to do.

It was there, in that pissant of an Arkansas town, down two dirt roads, past no bars or drive-thru daiquiri shacks,  120 miles from the nearest Starbucks, with no contemporaries or hopes for some, no friends or family, six steps away from a total mental breakdown that I discovered that the internet was for more than just buying petty things and research… It was also for…

The MySpace.

And once I realized that while The MySpace allowed me to reconnect with not only the handful of awesome people that I’d accidentally lost somewhere along the way (Lisa, Angie, Philbert, et al) but the handfuls of not-so-awesome people that I’d totally lost on purpose, I discovered…

The Mama Drama boards, where I found a couple of forever friends and a whole lot of crazy.

And once I realized that sometimes you can’t lose crazy people no matter how hard you try, I discovered…

Shannon and Mishi and Piper and BD and Tara and Maria and Jenni and many others who made me realize that living down two dirt roads with cabinets full of smuggled booze and rooms full of screaming babies isn’t so awful when you have like-minded friends (who totally love your Cher references and are infinitely more attractive than your redneck neighbor who believes that shirts are optional- in and out of church) but a click away.

It was friendship inside of a box… Friendship when I was completely alone (with the exception of the pretty piece of meat that I married and the spawn, of course) and out of touch with everyone that I loved and anyone that could appreciate anecdotes about broken vibrators and inappropriate midget jokes. Friendship that could I could stuff in my favorite bag and move right along with me, no matter how far I roamed.

And even though it’s now years later… And some of us hardly blog at all anymore… And some of us have never met in person… Or have now branched out to other things that take up all of our time…

We’re still missing one another when it’s been a while.

We’re still listening to each other in some way, shape, form, feed or tweet.

We still know each other well enough to say, “where are you now?”

So much more than a community…

It was and still is and will continue to be a bucket full o’awesome.

Community Prompt: Community. Where have you discovered community, online or otherwise, in 2010? What community would you like to join, create or more deeply connect with in 2011? #reverb10