Pros and Cons of Open Communication

Amate REALLY stresses striving for complete openness in the community. I would argue from my experience that it's the most important part of community living. It occasionally hits me that I didn't choose to room with any of my housemates-- none of did. Instead, we allowed ourselves to be open to rooming with anyone.

Community living requires heaps of flexibility. I quickly realized that I probably wouldn't necessarily be great friends with every single person in my community outside of Amate House. Nevertheless, I spend hours with these people so it's impossible just to "tolerate" someone. Communication allows deep and highly personal discussions. Things that irritate you about your roommates should most likely be addressed verbally. It sounds cruel, but I remember I once annoyed Becca by getting something out of her room when she wasn't around. She, being a wise second-year Amatian, sat be down and explained why it bothered her. It was a little thing, but it was nice to express both sides of the issue so no resentment could build up.

While little things maybe could (or even should) go unsaid, big issues are really difficult to confront.

We had a house meeting on Thursday, a sort of "State of the House" address by anyone wishing to speak their mind. Two difficult issues arose.

1. People either commute via CTA, walk, or drive to work. If you drive, the car is yours during the day and the gas is paid by Amate. If you drive anywhere else, the cars are considered communal and you are charged $0.25 per mile. Pretty fair system, but it's trickier with the CTA passes. The four of us that commute are given 30 day passes. Up until this point, the four of us have kept our passes on the weekend and loan them out if anyone needs one. On Thursday, a few of the drivers said that they don't understand why CTA passes are not communal like the cars. They felt CTA passes should be deposited by the car keys once the workday ended. Ultimately, it comes down to a power issue over who control the passes. It seems like a minor issue, but the El costs $2.25 per ride. If you want to go downtown, it automatically costs almost $5 every time which quickly ads up when you only make $100 per month. A lot of annoyance was released on both sides. No resolution was reached.

2. Probably the most difficult issue is that everyone had different expectations coming into this year. We were told that we could only leave the community for 10 days total throughout the year. Some people have been gone for over 15 days already and we're only half way through. I expressed my frustration that while I'm glad people get to see family each month, it's sometimes difficult for me to see everyone leave while I only get to see my family about once every 6 months. This conversation carried a lot of emotion and many feelings were hurt. No resolution was reached here either.

It was my first realization that sometimes things just won't be worked out. I know this probably sounds melodramatic, but we really all invest a lot of emotion into this experience. Communal living is wonderful, but it takes so much work. I guess I'm starting to wonder where you go when there's no place else to go? When you've said all their is to be said and there's no reconciliation, what happens? I feel in most instances you just go your separate way, but in communal living, there's no place to go. I think it shows why communal living is so powerful because you can't simply walk away. Everything must be dealt with.