Day 186.

Two hours of sleep and a day full of friends old and new and I'm trying hella hard to look awake. I'm learning some things. But the biggest thing seems to be that people are in dire need of healing. Deep, real healing, that comes from a place of opening up bravely and profoundly and asking for help, for support, for friendship, and for love. I see so clearly so much of what stands in the way of that - what stands in the way of us believing that we deserve it. How the systems that dictate how we live beat out of us any belief that we deserve all that we have ever dreamed of. How so many of us are taught that we have no right to ask for or expect real intimacy, real support, and real community.

People have been showing up for me in ways that I've never known before. They are showing up because I am asking them to, and because I have finally broken open wide enough that I am able to receive what they are offering. Newer people in my life . . . I used to be so afraid of getting close to new people. And now, just noticing that, naming it, changes everything. Even just one thing: "I am afraid of getting close to new people because of sex. I am afraid they want to have sex with me or that they don't. Either way, I lose. My fear sets up a lose-lose situation." I name it, and it's out there, and we're laughing, and we're friends. I am unlearning guilt, shame, fear, and feelings of unworthiness. It is amazing.

I have been yearning for so long to feel human again, while simultaneously wishing for liberation for all people. I haven't had any idea how to contribute to the kind of world I want to live in. I've been stuck on that. And now, I find myself in relationship, all the time, to anybody who happens to be in front of me. And it is the most important thing. How am I showing up? What am I asking for? What am I able to receive? What am I able to give? How do I do all of this without compromising myself? How do I feel myself and my needs and connect with other people where they are at? I feel so deep in my belly that this is the most important work of all.

I need to keep healing. Myself, my hurts, the ways I hurt others. And I need to show up in ways that support others in their healing. I am so clear. And I am so grateful to the current tragedy of my life for helping me break wide open, wail in the middle of the night, and cry without shame, with friends, or in public spaces, and feel my heart actually open and open and open again, like a blooming flower. Because opening is core to letting anything in.

And everybody needs to suffer, but nobody needs to suffer alone.