Googly Eyes

I recently stepped back from one day at my job, which was reason for celebration. I have been juggling too much, holding on by the very tips of my fingers, and the last few weeks made it abundantly clear that my plate was overly full. It was too much. I was drowning. It was undoubtedly the right thing to do, but it meant goodbyes to two women who have, in very short order, had outsized influence on my well-being, my mind, and my heart.

There are so many ways their mere existence reminds me of who I once was; we spent one afternoon sticking googly eyes to baby pictures around our office. I had forgotten I was capable of laughing like that because, at some point along the way, I just stopped. When I arrived at work after both of them, they would dance preposterously at me through the window; they would gyrate, waving and wiggling, until I looked into the office window and laughed at their audacity, the contagiousness of their joy a visceral reminder not to run from ecstasy.

There was ample silliness, but also deep sincerity and a bearing of souls in the most earnest and vulnerable way. They held me precisely how I am while also challenging me to see more, dream more, and be more. They shared truth and speculation and hope in a space that felt sacred. We shared our history in a way that is so rare for adults; I told them things I don't tell most people about the ways my heart has broken and exposed to them, in the sheer light of the day, the inevitable fractures and scars I mostly try to hide.

We created one of the richest and safest spaces I have ever been a part of and it is with deep mourning that I say goodbye to our every Tuesday gathering. It has happened only a few times in my thirty eight years that I meet people whose mere existence is an embrace. It is such a rare and beautiful thing to be wandering in the world and to bump into a piece of your soul walking in another person's body.

It is a bit of infinite beauty that any of us is entitled to these chance encounters with human beings who challenge one to be more open, more kind, more daring, and more authentic. It has been a year of daring, of encouraging one another to live with startling ferocity and fearlessness. And what astoundingly good fortune that we should meet at all, let alone that together we should bear witness to one another's metamorphosis.