(still alive)

So,

I don't write much anymore.

at all

It's sad, really. No time or desire. No fae muse to guide me. No life outside of the medicine: the sick people, the sterile rooms, the failing to thrive.

I've been thinking a lot lately about our need for relationships

that glue us together like pieces of one of those 3-D puzzle globes.

Kate and I always talk about therapy - counseling - as being less about intervention and more about our need to hear our deepest joys and fears being spoken in concert with another human being. We need to feel grounded to feel safe.

When we say someone is "grounded," we think of phrases like: "down to earth," "feet firmly planted," and other soiley metaphors. I think of electricity --> of that third prong on the plug. I think of the untamed energy of thunder clouds and it's insatiable need to crack down

back to earth. Back to the comforting - back to the stabilizing - presence of earth.

What most folks don't realize about lightening
is that it starts from the ground.
Unstable as the charged clouds may be
it's the earth that reaches out
to bring those stray electrons home.

Tonight, I find myself both charged and cloudy. Not with any of the passion of anger or the spiral of depression - just antsy. Uneasy. Uncomfortable in my own skin. I find myself eager to find my footing

in relationships that will last.

I feel exhausted by my efforts to find community in so many disparate circles.

My kingdom for a social Venn Diagram.
(I think Google is working on that.)

But, as I drift asleep tonight
to the sounds of my roommate's nightly battle against his epiglottis for air,
I believe
that we are puzzle pieces meant to fit
together.

And, myself: this buzzing cloud of anxious electrons --> all I need to do is wait

for the crack

and - embracing the blinding heat and light -

let myself be drawn back

to the pieces that make up my world. To those who ground me.

To those who, if nothing else, will echo back my deepest joys and deepest fears

wearing an expression that seems to fit.