We've opened up to each other and been hurt in the process - the distance between us seemed easier - and now it appears we're in the corners of our minds - quietly huddled in safety - wanting to reach, wanting more, but within the constructs of our consciousness and within the safety of not being hurt again, or more.

But the reaching and growing doesn't offer us that comfort. The nature of the reaching and growing offers us nothing but the promise of freedom because, just as fish can't see the ocean they swim in, we can't see the spirit that sustains us.

In life, as in water, when we curl up we sink but when we spread and go still we are carried by the largest sea of all; the sea of grace that flows steadily beneath the turmoil of events. Again and again the onset of pain makes us cluth and sink. But life has taught me that how we first open after doubling over is crucial to whether we heal at all.

This morning, in that half awake half asleep space, I dreamt that our days were starting together. We rolled into reality with banal discussions on the smallest details of a life being lived and, in time, she pulled up a chair to sit right next to me. In that movement and moment the space between us was barely visible.

My deepest desire wanted to move my hand to touch hers but the invisble line of her emotional connection was, for now, stretched to it's core and that is the understanding I have come to breathe in.

"Everything in the Universe is inter-connected. Within each is reflected." I think this explains why we are so drawn to certain things. Why, of all the fallen branches I will choose the one that most resembles the way I have had to bend all of my life. Why, of all the places you could return to you choose the lip of a cliff featureless by wind because it lets you choose the worn lip of your heart that you show no -one.

A theme keeps coming up for me - I was alerted to this a few years ago by a well meaning friend - and since then a special someone keeps pushing me back to it - relentlessly but lovingly so.  Showing up, really showing up as yourself, that's harder than it looks. It made me think of these words;

"Mining the moment for something that feels good, something to appreciate, something to savour, something to take in, that's what moments are about. They've not about justifying your existence. It's justified, you exist. It's not about proving your worthiness. It's done - you're worthy. It's not about achieving success, you never get it done. It's about 'how much can this moment deliver to me?'. Some of us like it fast, some slow, no-one's taking score. We get to choose. The only measurement is between desire and allowing. And our emotions tell us everything about that."

I have a busy life, blessed by a work and home life that never ceases to amaze and push me into more and more. This past weekend was no different - every waking moment crammed with busy-ness and it seems, at times, that I'm speeding along a track laid down by others, going so fast that I'm passing everything by in a blur.

But I was also pulled into a stark reality that I need to slow it all down, to really be present, for myself and the people I love. That is where the real growth, the real life is. So I'm not going to do that - blur anything - anymore.

My very very very best friend got hijacked yesterday and it took that to make me realise she's my very very very best friend. I don't want to be that person - the one who has an ephiphany because of a shock but in this instance I am.

I've always fought against titles, famously saying 'Just call me Alex and pay me double' when someone else was responsible for my salary. The title of girlfriend, best friend, any friend always seems to rub up against me. I've bucked against the idea that a relationship needs to have a definition in order to give it the space needed and I still believe that.

But all at the same time there comes a time when you need to just pick - something, someone, some direction and throw yourself all in. And this is that time.

"...Life is such a curious dichotomy. I don't think I understand it any more clearly than I ever did I just ride the storm a little more gracefully; feast and famine are part of the patchwork that is slowly sewing the quilt that will, I suppose, tell my life story.

I get it wrong, stumbling and falling with the "getting up" often messy and awkward but I'm up again. All the while my loves are running their own race and, more often, I find myself falling into their footsteps, running every so calmly with them until one of our paths digress and we're running alone again.

Living your own life is frightening and most of the time, if we're honest, we're lost. But here's the thing - living any other way is a wasted life. I am who I am because of the loves in my life. The people who see all of me and love me anyway"..