The difference between 'Network' & 'Community'.

I'm having a hard time right now realizing the differences that I've failed to notice between a network and a community. network : a group or system of interconnected people or things. community: a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals. I think that I have a very wide-cast, well rounded network of people. I'm still in touch with people from high school, people I went to college, university, church, and work, with. The people I meet teaching, even my professors.... but these people are not my community. I used to think that my community was this body of people but that became too shallow. Then as I began getting more involved I thought it must soley be my church community, but that's proven to not only be untrue but too fragile, too transient and particularly vulnerable to be my only source of community. I wonder if that's why people join fitness clubs or yoga classes. Maybe it's too hard to commit to just a person or a group of people that you aren't going to marry or spend the rest of your life with. I'm having a hard time because I feel like I need space from the network I know, but I want desperately to have a secure community. Is there such thing in that? What makes community so important?. I can feel myself being so drawn to the looks and smells of a community but my feet are so cautious. Perhaps it's from years of thinking my network was my community. There is a real sadness to leaving a school year behind to realize the people you saw every day no longer exist in your immediate realm of thought, nor you theirs. Especially when you go to art-school or creative school, there can be so much intersection of identity and opinion and judgement and validation that you begin to either shape yourself or tune out to whatever the buzz is around you. I think in my 4th year that just passed I had a working balance. I had enough of a community and enough of a network to feel socially purposeful but not manipulated by the people around me. Right now, I'm going into a school year with less class time and more Olivia-time. What the heck. In the last 5 years I've had a minimum of 25 class hours and now I'll have ... 8 WHAT DO I DO? I'm trying to channel my trepedacious energy into a part of me that is motivated to be involved in self-care and knowing that community means so much to me, I know it's only time before I go out and try to find a community. I think my fear in finding a community is the pressure to limit myself , but I think I can let that fear wash over me. I don't want to to only belong to a religious community, or a musician/artist community, or a community of educators, because it's not about same-ness.... it's about acceptance and maybe before I look for that in a community, I need to find it in myself. Wish me luck.