My friend Matt, a long-time resident of Park City, recently relocated to Jackson Hole. It’s a great move professionally, but moves can be challenging.
Consider: Egyptian slaves moved about 2,300,000 stone blocks — each weighing 2.5 tons — to build the Great Pyramid. All of this without a single Cairopractor in the house.
But seriously, moving is one of the top five human anxieties. It’s right up there with a mother-in-law visit, IRS audit and global nuclear war.
Yes, moving is hard. But finding your people? That’s the root canal of moving.
I mean, it’s not like you can go outside your house with a bullhorn announcing, Friend here! Anybody else looking for friends? I got you, friend. Hey, friend, over here!
“Just join a gym,” one person suggested. Matt replied that he doesn’t want to have to wait for equipment. And besides, there’s a gym in his building.
“I got an idea,” another well-meaning friend offered. “Make a profile and go on Tinder,” That elicited another nope ,along with a huge eyeroll.
“Wait — what about pickleball?”
“There’s no indoor pickleball in Jackson,” he replied. “But as soon as the weather warms up, I’m there.”
Bingo. Community doesn’t just emerge out of the vapor. It comes in its own time and season.
And sometimes, it finds you at the exact moment that you stop looking.
When I moved to Paris in 2015 not knowing a single soul, a woman I knew said, “Good luck making friends. The women are so snooty. It’s impossible.”
For the first few weeks, I feared she was right. I wandered the streets, took myself shopping, lingered in cafes — just me, my rosé and a bowl of peanuts. “Tout seul?” the French waiters would ask, just you? Yes, just me. Tout seul in the most romantic city in the world.
But then one day, I joined a CrossFit gym and met my first friend, an actual Parisienne who spoke perfect English.
It wasn’t the first time a CrossFit gym saved me. Back in 2009, CrossFit Rochester was where I found my strength, my place, my people. Nineties heavy metal blared from the speakers, always a little too loud. The coach was even louder, and gave exactly zero f’s. And someone was always counting your reps like they needed you to finish them even more than you did.
Back then, everyone else said CrossFit was an obnoxious cult. But for me, it was heaven, a sanctuary, a true community of friends who did all the things friends should do: lift each other up, celebrate victories and remain completely non-judgmental about the amount of bodily fluids you’d left on the floor after a workout.
I despised burpees and thrusters as much as the next athlete, but my hatred evaporated when I was doing them alongside 25 of my fellow grunting, grimacing, sweating compatriots. My people.
Back in 2014, I broke both my hands in a skiing accident. A few weeks after my surgeries, I returned to my CrossFit gym. Even with both hands still casted, I figured I could at least do a modified workout using my legs. I was warming up when, to my surprise, I noticed there was a leg workout already posted on the whiteboard. Then I turned around to see everyone in the gym gathering around me, every single one of them also with both hands wrapped in tape. My people.
I moved to Park City in 2020, and one of the first to befriend me was a woman in my class at Park City Fit. I remember feeling awkward and out of place in a gym started by one of the OG legends, Chris Spealler.
Chris competed in the very first CrossFit Games in 2007 and went on to qualify for seven more, making the podium in three of them. Among the other athletes in my class were national ski racing champions, professional skiers and actual Olympians.
Sherri came right over after my first class and started chatting me up like an old friend. My people.
I know that Matt, the Kevin Bacon of our friend group, will find his people in Jackson. But community isn’t like matcha — the green tea that gives you an instant buzz that lasts and lasts. It’s often created through repetition, proximity, time. Youve got to show up.
It’s not like I got lucky in Paris or Rochester or even Park City. I just walked through a door where connection happens naturally. Where the simplest gestures carry weight along with the incredible lightness of being together. The soft tap of a paddle at the end of a match. Side-by-side sweat angels peacefully co-existing on the floor. Taped hands fist-bumping across the void. Maybe that’s what finding your people looks like.