Oh this is a good feeling. Reconnecting with myself, falling in love with myself again. I'm crying with joy right now, a sense of reunion, of finally breaking through. I lost myself somewhere in the loss of Carol (the death of someone I loved, the first time I had experienced that) and the loss of the first place that I felt was truly MINE (a place I had built my tribe in) and the loss of my car Sylvia (who was truly home to me -- so many memories in that car! so many people and places, so many tears and kisses) and I think also to some extent in the people I was/am loving. Expectations and fears wrapped me in a horrid little cocoon of stasis. I had forgotten my relationship with myself, had sacrificed my own values for the care of others, and had hemmed in my own behavior for fear of loss. It's so easy for me to do that, and I wish it wasn't. I need to remind myself to adventure on my own, to invest in myself, to do things alone. I need to remember that magic can exist between me and the broader universe, and not just in the affirmative connections with other humans. I am the creator of me. I can be that self again, I can walk on a carpet of my own curling, growing life. I can -- and must -- find unfiltered nourishment, straight from source.

I got caught up in the magic of community and forgot the magic of solitude. A single evening reading feminist writings and listening to music in the newly created self-extension of my room (which isn't even complete yet!) has brought it back for me. Community was a new magic, a potent one, and I filled my life with it until there was nothing else. Then situations made it difficult to get community and I had forgotten any other way, so I got hungrier and weaker until I accidentally created solo magic again and oh, relief.