The Horizontal Cult

On Longing, Friendship, and the Structure of Showing Up

The Horizontal Cult: On Longing, Friendship, and the Structure of Showing Up

I don’t know about you right now, but I feel like I’m being pulled in a hundred directions. I’m trying to prioritize what matters, but everything feels important and messy and loud.

A question I keep coming back to is: how do we know who’s going to stay in our lives for the long haul?

I want to show up for everyone—new friends, old friends, Margaret’s community, Josh’s family, my family. But I can’t. There isn’t enough space in my brain, or time in my days, to do it all.

And yet, I’m longing. Longing for the kind of friends who come over casually for dinner. Who borrow sugar. Who you can walk to. Who drop everything to go to the beach. I want shoulder rubs when we’re tense, interest in the boring stuff, and the kind of intimacy that lives in the ordinary.

But life has a way of getting in the way of these relationships—or at least it does for me.

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The Ache of Losing What Works

There are people who enter our lives with a kind of ease, a feeling of “yes, you.” One of those people for me was a dear friend who moved to Italy in 2022. I honestly thought she was my soulmate. When she told me she was leaving, I was torn. I knew it was the right thing for her family. I knew I had to be happy for her. But a part of me cracked.

I’ve spent the last two years trying to fill the hole she left behind. Some of that time, I poured into the co-op preschool Margaret and I joined. It was time-consuming, sometimes stressful, heavy on community involvement—but also full of joy. It scratched an itch I hadn’t known I had.

Now we’re getting kicked out. I say that with a sense of drama that it feels like being told by your family of the last two years that they want to break up with you. And yet, on some level, it is just a part of life that we need to go to kindergarten. M can’t stay in preschool forever.

I knew it would be sad, but I didn’t know how sad. The best way I can put it is this: I’d rather volunteer 5–10 hours a week doing fundraising (yes, I was the fundraising chair) than not be in the club at all. Because being in the club meant I had people around me.

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Naming the Longing

Now I’m asking myself: if I’m out of that community, how do I recreate the kind of support system I want? What was it about the co-op that worked? What made it feel like home?

I think it was this: it functioned like a faith community without the whole god person. Like you could believe in a higher power but we all did the work of defining what a “good” person was and then actually being that person, together, for each other.

I’ve looked for that kind of community in faith settings before. The closest I’ve come is the Unitarian Church in Berkeley, but it’s far from East Oakland, the songs don’t quite land, and the kids are few and far between. I tell myself no community is perfect. But maybe the goal isn’t perfect. Maybe it’s perfectly imperfect and committed.

So I started making a list of what I’m actually craving:

• A structure for relationships. Rules and expectations for how we show up. We agree on what is important and how we can best actually do it.

• Defined values we agree on and return to.

• Shared responsibilities. Projects. Chores. Annoying things made less annoying because we do them together. Even if we bitch about it. Or talk trash.

• Shared resources. You borrow my tent; I’ll return your bounce house with a small hole (just kidding, Nicole).

• Rules around phones. I hate my phone and want it to die, and yet I rely on it for everything. I want space where we agree to be here. Not in some digital realm.

I was talking about all of this to someone, and they said, “Yeah, but we also need to be flexible when people can’t make it.”
And I said, maybe a little harshly, “No. The whole point is that we show up. There has to be a cost if we don’t. Otherwise, what are we even doing?”
Maybe not fines. Maybe not kicking people out. But some kind of shared accountability. A commitment we all believe in. I hate this idea, but would I have shown up if I was not expected to? I am not sure…

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A System of Support

Imagine this:
A meal train starts when someone gets sick.
Planned celebrations. Planned mourning.
Someone you can call when you can’t hold it together who you know wants to be there for you because it makes them feel valued. And they serve a purpose, are helpful, etc.
A messy, evolving structure that tells you what to do when you’re sad and what to do when you’re joyful, so you’re never alone in your human-ness. I am not saying that we all do xyz when we are sad, just that there is a looseness that advocates to do something rather than sit frozen wanting to help/be there but not knowing how.

I call it a horizontal cult.
No leaders. Just us.
A community where we sign contracts to show up for each other. Sounds gross, but I think there is a formality in a contract that states intentions that helps us maintain them. Like marriage, for example. We signed a contract saying that we would be there for each other. Why can’t we do that with friends and what would that even look like? And why do I even need it? IDK.
I want to be on the hook for you. That’s what I’m saying.

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Showing Up (Even When It Hurts)

This weekend, I overscheduled myself to avoid confronting the truth: I feel like I’m failing. As a mom. As a partner. A daughter. As a business owner. As a person. The whole time, I was muttering to myself, “Carissa, you have a problem. When you overschedule, you disappoint everyone. You can’t be present. And these shallow connections don’t mean anything if all you do is spend time coordinating.”

About eight months ago, I asked my friend Sarah if I could be at the birth of her baby. I wanted to be there so badly. I love Sarah. We both have children with complex medical needs, and with her, I feel seen. I can complain about how hard it is and I feel like she understands.

Before I even knew she was pregnant, I had a dream that we were both expecting. It made me so happy. I told her about it, and a week later, she told me she already knew she was pregnant when I said it.

I long for a second child.
My therapist tells me to hold other people’s babies.
And it hurts.

But here’s the thing I didn’t expect:
It also heals.

Sarah had her baby on Saturday night while I was hosting a dinner party at my house with the bounce house filled with balls. With my sister’s family in town. New friends that Josh really likes and he is really picky about people. I left the prep and my family to fend for themselves, which felt complicated, but seeing the birth felt like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Being there. Watching the love in Sarah’s eyes. Letting it in like it was mine.
It didn’t make the longing go away, but it gave it somewhere to rest.
That, too, is community. That, too, is a kind of motherhood. A kind of showing up.

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The Close

So maybe I’m not looking for a perfect solution.
Maybe I just want a group of people who say “yes” to being in each other’s lives with intention.

Not just when it’s easy.
Not just when it’s convenient.
But all the way through.

I want to be on the hook for you.
I guess that’s what I’m saying.

With love, Carissa

What would your imperfect community look like? Just curious.