The human heart is the first home of democracy. It is where we embrace our questions. Can we be equitable? Can we be generous? Can we listen with our whole beings, not just our minds, and offer our attention rather than our opinions? —Terry Tempest Williams

I'm sitting here in my bed with a glass of wine and you, whoever you are on the other side of a screen. I am full of thought, deep emotion, and yet I only wish to spend them with words flowing outward. Words are easier than emotion. They take the emotion and organize it across a screen. The reaction to my emotion is anonymous. It is clean and predictable and I am not required to process it. Though, I write this for you as much as I write it for me. 

I have been gifted with a few things. I am good with kids, I can make art, I can organize words, and I can feel emotion. My emotional being is one that has not always been welcomed in our society. In this society that is progressive and moves forward. It pretends to notice things that it blatantly disregards and moves past, like healthcare, and education, and quality time with loved ones. This society is hard for me to understand. It forces me to create art or go crazy. Or to find people who accept my crazy.

Tonight I experienced that community. I sat in a room of people who I've known for 20 years. We circled up around a dinner table. We ate with each other and then took the time to move around the circle giving love to each of the members of our staff. Looking around the room, not a single person checked their phone. We spent time with each other. And I always thought we did summer camp for the kids, or maybe we did it to retain our youth, but tonight I realized that we all do it because our best friends are all still there doing it. 

I realized how little credit I've given to this particular community that welcomes me back, even after 5 years of being away, with the most widely opened arms and smiles. They have seen the child in me, that loves to play wildly, and they know the side of myself that is good. And for a while I felt like a big phony. I felt like I had fooled them because they didn't know all of the shit I have to deal with on a daily basis to stay afloat. But then I realized what a gift it is to be able to walk into a room where every single person wants you to be there. 

That is community. That is love. That is what every spiritual teaching strives for. And that is what you can find at summer camp. There is a space on earth where every person is welcomed as they are and they are allowed to feel. Their joy and their sadness all have enough room at the table. I have enough room at the table for all of me. Even the pieces that are too hard to carry, are lighter when we share the load. 

Look. I am tired. The facade of being able to do everything on my own is wearing off and I am ready to ask for help. To let people love me as much as I love them, and to show up for the people that show up for me and encourage me to be more of me. I live in a state of fear that people aren't aware of how much I care for them. I spread myself out between groups and states and countries. My way of caring has been to sit in the company of the people that I am with and love them for the time that we share together. 

I am learning how invaluable it is to share time with the same people. Again and again. Even when the going is not glamorous. And to surround ourselves with the people who make the every day seem glamorous. Because the more life I live, the more I find how important it is to return to a group of people who know and love us again and again so that we can be reminded of who we are. Who we were is a piece of us. When we separate ourselves from those pieces, we grow wildly, but when we return we find that they don't all fit. And slowly, we shake away old pieces and build new ones. 

Who I am today has a very specific group of humans tied into the mix. I like to pretend I did it all on my own. But turns out, I had role models and I just wasn't able to put it into words. The coolest people I know are the ones who see other peoples potential and believe in it beyond reason. Who allow every single person to rise and fall and still meet them on the same level that they've always  believed in.... its beautiful. 

I am ready to grow into the person people have always believed in. I want to be as good as they believe in. And I am diving back into education because its what I believe in. Its such a strange circle but it is all coming together. By committing to what I care about, I commit to the people that care about me. I am happy to be where I am now. I am also probably happy that you are too. 

I love you because I do.