Doing Life Together

Yesterday I got a bunch of my friends together and we took pictures of our little people together.  This is my community (although no where near all of it) and we wanted to document the ways our lives blend together.  These women and I are part of a top secret Facebook group together, where we tell our stories and show up for each other.  We scream and laugh and say “you’ve got this” almost every day.  I hope that you have a commun that does the same for you. Think about documenting what you mean to each other sometime in photos or video.

To document our evening together, here are the photos mixed with quotes from one of my favorite books “If You Feel Too Much” by Jamie Tworkowski.

“You’ll need coffee shops and sunsets and road trips. Airplanes and passports and new songs and old songs, but people more than anything else. You will need other people and you will need to be that other person to someone else, a living breathing screaming invitation to believe better things.”

“We are all a people in need.
We are not perfect. We are not machines.
We make mistakes.
We need grace. We need compassion.
We need help at times.
We need other people.
And that’s okay.”

“Be loved. Be known. Love people and know people. Be so brave as to raise a hand for help when you need it. Make friends and make sure they know they matter. Be loyal to them and fight for them. Remind them what’s true and invite them to do the same when you forget. If you do some losing or you walk with someone else in their defeat, live with dignity and grace. It is a middle finger to the darkness.”

“If you love somebody, tell them. If there is conflict, let it go and fight instead for peace. Break the numb false silence and break the distance too. Laugh and cry and apologize and start again. This life is short and fragile but friendship is among the greatest miracles.”

“I don’t know your story or your dreams or the things that steal your sleep, but I know they matter. I hope you story is rich with characters, rich with friends and conversation. I hope you know some people who carry you, and I hope you have the honor of carrying them. I hope that there’s beauty in your memories, and I hope it doesn’t haunt you. And if it does, then I hope there is someone who will walk you through the night and remind you of the promise of the sunrise, that beauty keeps coming, that there are futures worth waiting and fighting for, and that you were made to dream.”