Oh, sweet wounded, gentle heart

Rest your weary head here for a while.

This’ll be a quick one today.

There’s a thread that weaves the words of all my friends:

They all say, they’re tired.

They wish things would relent.

They want a break.

Some are disabled - some have known this for a long time…

…while others are discovering new and alarming health problems that seemed to spring out of the perfect blue.

We’re all middle aged, or getting there, reaching this pivotal moment with disillusionment for the life we were meant to have.

Hardly any of my friends are homeowners. Most work until they collapse. No time for a social life, borrowing energy from tomorrow.

Day after day, I listen to them. Their struggles, their exhaustion, their hope.

Not one of them has lost hope - they’re just really bone fucking tired.

They’re really missing community.

All of us are.

We are interdependent creatures - not independent.

Don’t forget that you’re being sold a lie.

What other time in human history, or the history of all life on earth, was individualism the way forward?

I walk through the forest and see an ailing tree being held, supported and lifted by another. Over time, they grow in a spiral upwards together - eventually becoming indecipherable.

I walk into my bedroom and see my cats cleaning each other’s soft fur.

On clear days in early October, I watch hundreds upon hundreds of turkey vultures gliding in tandem high above the city, making their way south together.

Nestled within flower petals I see bees snuggling.

Yesterday, a vibrant, fuzzy butterfly got stuck in between two window panes. I patiently waited an hour for her to calm down enough to be held, and taken outside.

You are being sold a lie.

If you are also tired (I know you are), if you are also overwhelmed (I know you are), if you are also deep in grief (I know, I know) then also know this:

The way life has been currently imagined for the masses is just that: an imagining. It is twisted, it is heinous, it only serves a select few, and it is a destroyer.

But it is not the only imagination we can have.

Many of us imagine differently. We see a different world that is softer, kinder, where community is robust and thriving.

Where we’re not siloed, a cog in the machine. Where instead, we’re a vital part of each other’s lives. Sharing the burdens. Making the load lighter.

Most of us are so tired and overwhelmed that we assume others are too, and so we don’t reach out. A friend of mine said this to me just two days ago. She doesn’t feel she can ask for help, because she knows others are struggling like she is.

But the rub is that it’s not mutual struggle that prevents us from reaching out - it’s the lie we’re being sold that individualism is the way forward. It’s the shame of needing another person.

When in truth, we need other people all the time.

Chronic illness and disability teach us this. We are forced to drop the pretenses, the guards, the facades. Need flows freely. Dependence becomes undeniable.

But this has always been the case! Interdependence is always there, it is simply under the exoskeleton that capitalism has thrust upon us.

We can imagine things differently.

We can overcome the shame of needing others when we realize we’re not alone in our need.

“Shame is the shadow of love.” PJ Harvey said this. Not shadow in an evil sense, or a strictly negative sense.

Simply, shame is what we don’t embrace with love. But everything is asking to be loved, all the time. All our parts. The whole self. Especially the self that struggles.

To imagine things differently, we have to overcome the notion that we’re failing or bad if we need other people. We must overcome the lie we’re being sold.

It breaks down the facade we’re all carrying, and then the raw throb of humanity is simply revealed.

What do you need help with today?

What can you ask for?

The worst thing that will happen is that you’ll receive a ‘no.’

But for every no there will be countless yeses.

And that is how we imagine differently.

Until next time,

Love and wolves.

D xx