and i have gotten my first cold

my first cold since getting my nose pierced last fall. It has been lovely actually, this little cold, being passed around between a great number of us. This handful looking bedraggled and swollen and sore. Then, yesterday, started the crying. Actually, the crying started the middle of last week, but gets more intense as the days progress. We've talked openly about our deepest fears. And it's okay because we find out we aren' t the only ones. We've talked through grief and loss. (More like sobbed our way through grief and loss.) I try to live well. I truly believe in living openly and vulnerably, but I know there is a part of me that holds back... a part of me that wants to protect its self. You who love me deeply have had the courage to say to me "you have so much to give, but I see you hold it in so often... it looks like the wheels in your mind are spinning furiously but you don't speak. I wish you would feel free to share whatever it is you are thinking." And I have, I have spoken when I am timid. But this week I have recognized that I still manage in protection mode most often. I watch instead of participate. I wait until safety has been established before I truly engage on a heart level. I hesitate to go where there is the possibility of pain.

Tomorrow we do intentional goodbyes. Not a lecture where we sit and learn all about how to say goodbye well. Honest, literal, face to face goodbyes with the people we have come quickly to love. Families and individuals who have been vulnerable and shared deep places with us. I'm not being sarcastic or silly when I say... I am kind of panicking.

I don't know where my cold ends and my sadness begins. I am a soppy mess.

and my nose hurts.

But here I am safe to explore these feelings - and it is not only valuable... it is important.

And now, I go to our advising session... and afterwards we are getting to talk to a couple who love Emthonjeni as much as we do and happen to be here in Colorado Springs.

So I end on this note.

This has been and continues to be an amazingly valuable experience.

Not at all what I hoped and dreamed, but at the same time... more than what I could have ever known that I longed for.