10 Signs You’ve Found Your People

It was dark when I arrived, like the middle of the night, though it had barely become evening yet. As the bus crawled through the streets, winding up the hills, I fixed my gaze on what looked like a home. It had floor to ceiling windows that looked out over the lake and it glowed with a warmth I could feel miles away. I dreamed that my stop would be that glow at the top of the hill. And it was. I’d been travelling for six months and knew the hostel rhythm pretty well. The worn in furniture, the myriad of accents and languages blending into a cacophony like nothing I’d heard before. I’d also adapted my own hostel rhythm—linger for a bit in the common room before ducking away to my bed for the night, eager to rise and head out early the next morning for exploration.

But this hostel was different. There was no TV playing a random movie or people cornered off in publicly private conversations. Instead, there were those gigantic windows looking out over Queenstown, cozy couches and quilts, and a guy singing and playing his guitar. People wandered and chatted, openly inviting others into circles and conversations as though we were all guests in the world’s most casual cocktail hour. It wasn’t a hostel common room; it was a ragtag community made of people brought together by time and circumstance. I don’t remember names and I barely can recall faces, but in that small moment of that big trip, the people at that hostel were my people. They were my community.

We think of community as this big, elusive thing—something we work hard to build or seek to find in our lives. Our community is a title we give to "our people" and our community often grows around us like ivy, climbing the walls and reaching the top before we even notice it’s there.

Here are ten signs that you’ve found your people:

1. You Need Them At the end of the day, or the week, or maybe even the month, you look forward to coming together with a group of people and sharing the new, the old, and everything in between.

2. There Ain’t no Mountain High Enough, to Keep Me From Getting To You Despite all of the logistics that could get in the way, things like time and geography, you still manage to come together.

3. You Have a Shared Purpose You find yourself united with a group of people by the will to do something, be it talk and reflect or change the world.

4. You Have Multiple Homes You have more than one place that feels like home.

5. You Share the Good Times When it’s time to celebrate, you have no question as to who to call or who should join you.

6. They're Here for you at All Times When you need something—a cup of sugar, a friend to walk you home, a shoulder to cry on or shake with in laughter—you have a circle of people around you.

7. The Best Greetings Reaching out to a member of your circle is always met with smiles and hugs.

8. They are Part of Your Story You can’t imagine what this time in life would be like without the people you have around you.

9. They Make You Better Things shared between those in your circle stick with you and help shape your perspective on the world around you.

10. They Grow With You

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