In this transitioning world, friendships seem to be in the new flow, as well.

“Hey, Greg?”

“What is it, baby?” Greg is one of my many male friends: our friendship, on the outside, looks like it extends beyond mere friendship; we call one another baby and darlin’ and any other number of sweet nothings. Greg has a girlfriend (other than yours truly) and he and I have decided that we are not going to have any kind of sexual liaison.

I am truly blessed; my life is filled with beautifully intimate friendships where my friends and I are comfortable massaging one another, holding hands as we walk together, treating each other to meals and even sleeping together. (Sometimes we just sleep, although that’s becoming rarer, since everyone seems to be horny as toads, lately—maybe it’s the stress of life and the fabulous release of sex that make such good “bed partners.”)

From what I have been experiencing, friendships are taking on new dimensions and physical touch is seen as something more casual, less serious, yet vital to our everyday, individual existence. In our world of having relationships with our computer screens and faraway friendships all over the globe, touch is ever more desired. Touch is something we are realizing that we simply cannot live without.

I consider myself an independent chick. Yet I also realize that touch completes me, connects me in a symbiotic relationship to community, to the rest of the world. I was talking with a good friend this morning and telling David that lately I’ve been taking on other people’s energy, as though I feel I am responsible for their healing. I have a service business and perhaps the Libra in me just naturally goes to the extreme and my ego wants to heal everyone on the planet. Although my service business is growing and doing well, especially being fairly new to the scene, I see myself perhaps wanting to go overboard and (not letting myself be used as a doormat however), thinking I can take others’ pain and transform it so that they will not have to feel it or go through it, themselves. Funny—it’s also happening at a time when my own confusion and feelings are in flummox mode—I figure I’m personally at a point in transition and currently in-between knowing and not-knowing/being and not being. Well, I suppose I am being—confused, that is. In terms of knowing what I want in life, my path is not clear, as I haven’t taken the time to think about it—I am in fear with all this worldly change and my own world is rocking/teetering on the brink of madness.

As a long time creative nonfiction writer, I also worked as an Editor. From what I could see, either I did a rotten job (meaning I missed making corrections that were important to the job as a whole) or the client either thought I: changed too much or not enough. Several of them had issues with my fee. Since haggling is not my strongest talent and it made my work very challenging at times, not to mention I could not seem to make my clients happy, I stopped. I decided to drop editing and begin a new business. I do what I love to do: be of service in the domestic arena. It’s what I do best—I always enjoyed being a wife and taking care of our home and as a single parent I still love the domestic duties, like food shopping, cooking, laundry and cleaning. The idea of a beautiful, comfy home that makes us feel good while we are living in it, calls to me. I’m sensitive to my environment and on a very deep level it’s always fulfilled me.

There’s also the idea of not wanting to be in relationship with my computer screen any longer—and to be physically in contact with real people—either friends or strangers, alike—feels exhilarating and makes me feel alive. The best word that describes my energetic sense of being is: experiential. I want to experience life—not still life, as in my computer, energized life, communicating-with-people life, body to body. And I have a strong feeling that my friends are feeling similarly.

Many of them are going through physical distress, currently. Either they have been through car accidents or just bodily weaknesses where they are sick with colds, broken or strained muscles/bones or cancer. I’m seeing the gamut and the universe seems to be telling us all to take better care of ourselves, to appreciate our bodies and physical beings, to love one another more deeply on a grounded level.

And so I do love my friends more: we say I love you before we hang up the phone; we call one another sweet names and we let love generate through us, like single rays, making up the whole sun. We let our lights shine brightly because we know, on some level, that we are all temporarily in our bodies on this plane and that now is the time and moment to enjoy one another in celebration. Because really—the future is a mystery and we are all in this together—why not enjoy each the heck out of each other while we can?