Almost four years ago, I lost my tribe.

You know what I mean by tribe. You probably have one too.

It’s the people you share a vision, a mission or an office. It’s the people you stand around the water cooler or coffee machine with and commiserate about the boss, brag about the new concept you developed, or scored the biggest commission of the day.

Almost four years ago, I quit my day job selling and buying fresh shellfish and dead fish.

I was tired of the competitive, hurried, sell-another-ten-pounds-of-snapper environment. I’d lost my biggest account, of which I had no control. I didn’t know how I would get those sales numbers back. Even though we could finally afford for me to quit, I was afraid, and tired.

I was tired of hustling thirty pound boxes of ice-dripping dead fish in my car because the warehouse had a hic-cup and “forgot,” to put it on the truck, or my favorite chef changed his daily special, or worse, my competitor fucked up and I was called to fix the problem.

But as glorious as quitting sounded, I was afraid.

What would I do without my peeps, my tribe?

This is what I told my nervous soul.

I wouldn’t miss the day-to-day madness of the blaring early morning alarm, coffee-to-go and a tuna fish brown-bag lunch that might get stolen in the communal fridge. I wouldn’t miss the six-lane, bumper-to-bumper traffic to arrive to a warehouse that smelled like a wet dead fish box where aggressive, sometimes angry sales reps screamed into the handset of the phone, begging, pleading, joking or yelling about dead fish. I wouldn’t miss the boss glaring at me because I was late to work. Again. Even though I’d earned a salary, and put more than my fair share of time on the proverbial time clock.

The biggest drawback, I’d feared, I’d lose my tribe.

But it would take me a few years to figure this out.

And this is what I told my nervous soul.

I’d stay up late without repercussions, and sleep in until I woke naturally. I’d walk the dog mid-morning and enjoy time with my husband to travel, or eat a late lunch. I’d write. I’d develop blogs. I’d take uninterrupted naps. I’d cook because I loved to cook, not because I was tired, hungry, and needed fuel to keep up the pace of a sixty-hour a week job.

But the obvious, glaring emptiness of quitting my day job was the lack of companionship with like-minded people who, as a team, work daily against the clock to meet a goal, make a sale, develop an idea or in my case, sell dead fish.

I’d miss the relationships with Chef’s, managers, and warehouse people. The one’s I’d nurtured and coddled, selling fish over the phone, in tiny back kitchen offices, in over-sized industrial shiny stainless steel kitchens, on the delivery docks of the high-end resort hotels. Even though these relationships were fleeting and fragile, and could melt away like the chipped ice the dead fish were delivered on, if their higher-than-heaven expectations weren’t met.

I wouldn’t miss smelling like a dead fish.

I wouldn’t miss the grind.

But I would miss my tribe.

Today, almost four years later, I found a different kind of tribe.

My online tribe.

Where Facebook has become a warm, cozy community of family and friends. And Twitter, where like-minded seafood-loving, literary friends share in-the-moment stories in 140 characters or less. On Pinterest, where a picture tells a story, no words or water cooler required.

Where my modern-day, online tribe, shares ideas about sustainability, the concern for the demand and the dwindling supply of fresh fish. Where poetry, wit, recipes and love for the oceans fills my day.

I’ve found my tribe.

Now I hope I don’t have to take another day job, and lose them too.