After our son committed to a boarding school in 2011, I started looking for a community of people who were familiar with this path as we didn’t know anyone with a child at BS. I searched on the school name for information beyond the school’s website and found many CC links. I signed up to join the conversations on the prep school forums and have been here ever since. My 14-year-old is now 26 and married, so I’ve moved here to the main Parent Cafe almost exclusively. I’ve seen so many posters come and go over the years, mostly once their students have either chosen or graduated from a school, but I’ve found real community here and several IRL friendships. I’ve tried to leave several times, but I’ve woven too much of myself into the CC fabric, and I just can’t leave the voices here even if they don’t know who they are and how much I enjoy them. I’m looking forward to the Michigan and Maine meetups to put more faces to avatars and make some new IRL friends. CC becomes less and less virtual to me.
As I posted years ago on the How Has CC Helped You or Your Kid… thread:
I keep saying it’s time to go, but then I learn about the life-changing Instant Pot, how much I need to retire (and when), which movies to watch/books to read, how to purge my house a bag at a time, and how badly dressed I am, so how can I leave this special place that enables me to get it off my chest and brag without repercussion? My kid thinks this site is full of possible serial killers and rolls his eyes every time I mention CC, but I feel pretty safe here and have no current plans to leave.
(BTW: If any of you ARE serial killers, I highly recommend the Say it here cause you can’t say it directly- the get it off your chest thread.)
In my search for that old post, I came across a similar thread Where were you when you joined CC? Where are you now? that brought back some absent names.