New Here? Tips For Integrating Into A New Community After A Move
I remember the empty feeling clearly.
Not just empty boxes from unpacking but an emptiness in my heart.
After the dishes found their place in the cabinets and the furniture found just the right spot in our home, we too would have to find our place in Baton Rouge.
I was nervous.
Where would I meet friends? What do people do here in July? (I’ll admit the humidity was a little bit of a shock) And what do I take my toddler to do… like tomorrow morning?
Google can only get you so far without local savviness.
We had packed up our life in Arizona and moved to Louisiana. A part of the country we had never lived, let alone visited.
Here’s what I learned about integrating into a new community ::
Talk To Everyone
I started with what I needed to do and found out what I could do. Walmart, Target, Costco. As I ran my errands and mentioned I just moved here I was always met with one recommendation. Which I would try and that led to another. I talked to my neighbor who said Red Stick Mom knows it all. It turns out there is plenty to do here in the summer. It’s amazing what you can learn from locals in a five minute conversation.
Get Out: Trial and Error
Libraries are always a safe place to start. I went to my closest library which is a hub of resources. I’ve met so many other moms at our library which led to play dates and more activities in the area. The trick here is to follow through. A mom recommended Story Time in the Gardens and I’ve since been going monthly. I learned to rebound quickly. If a friendship or activity didn’t work out or wasn’t your favorite, note it and move on. When I got discouraged it held me back from seeing the beauty around me and making new friendships.
Church or Schools Can Be Your Anchor
You need a community that’s regular. Seeing the same people weekly can build those friendships and a sense of community more than randomized drop ins around town. We had members of church bring us chicken pot pie upon moving in. They even unpacked our U-haul with us. We were invited over to three different dinners in a month. So this was that southern hospitality everyone kept telling me about. Very quickly we felt like we had neighbors to turn to. We also got my daughter in a fantastic Mothers Day Out program which created a sense of consistency and community through her school.
Try New Things
Boy was there a lot of new here. The lobsters I saw around town turned out to be Crawfish. King cake is better than I ever imagined and Mardi Gras could be family friendly?
We leaned in to the food, music, and swampy nature around us! Finding the rich culture around us helped us appreciate our new home. I’m still a novice when it comes to Baton Rouge and I’m still getting new recommendations all the time. But if I could hug little old me almost a year ago, I would. I would tell her I would find my groove and have no shortage of activities to take my daughter to do.
I can’t imagine the void that would be in my life had we not moved here and met some of my closest friends yet.
