This post is all about me (so what else is new, you might ask?! LOL). I'm writing straight from the heart. Some of you have witnessed the roughness of my life lately. I'm not going to go into any of that again. But the part I do want to share is that here in this city where I live, I have no friends. The combination of too much grief, chronic fatigue and other issues has made it impossible for me to find friends here. I have an amazing wonderful much-cherished best friend who lives on the other side of the country, and I thank God every day for her in my life. But on a day-to-day basis, I have nobody. Nobody phones me, I have nobody to phone. I have nobody to go to lunch with, nobody to shop with...you get the picture.

But what I do have is this amazing, wonderful community of women who come into my life and heart each and every day, sharing tears, laughter, fears, angst, hearts and lives. Do you have any idea how empty my life would be without you? Do you have any idea how wretchedly intolerable my emptiness would be without you? Do you have any clue how you loved and carried me through the last two years? Where would I be without you? Each and every one of you has helped to save my life, has loved me through a terrible grief, has loved me into this next phase of my life.

I need you. I need BWS. I need this community. I need your wisdom. I need a safe place to share my voice, people who want to listen to what little tidbits I might have to offer - there's nobody else in my life who listens to me, unless I pay therapist fees. My husband tries, but my heart yearns for the wisdom and presence and unique perspective that only other women can give.

I don't ever come here looking for yet more loneliness and separation. I come looking to connect, to share hearts and thoughts, to listen, to learn, to laugh, to help love and carry others through their terrible griefs and rough patches.

I love you women. I cherish this place. This is my niche, perhaps the one place in the entire world where I feel I belong - you don't know how it's taken me 40+ years to find a place where I feel like I belong, where I can just come in, take my shoes off, wear my heart on my sleeve and just be.

It's not perfect, we're not perfect, I've never come here expecting anyone or the community at large to be perfect, to be anything other than what it is on any given day. That changes, according to where each of us are on any given day. That's the ebb and flow of life, that's the diversity of our "us-ness", that's authentic community, good and bad, tears and laughter, disagreements and celebrations. Me, I love it all. Sometimes it frustrates me, sometimes I'm anxious when things aren't quite as harmonious as we could be, but I know that it too will pass, that our strength lies in our love and care for one another, and that eventually that love wins out over all else.

I'm getting too long-winded here. I'm sorry. But I just have to reiterate...I love you women, I love BWS; and I believe we're ALL here because we're meant to be here, sharing and learning from each other whatever it is we're meant to be sharing and learning from each other.

I could write a book about what this community has done for me, all the ways you have changed, healed and evolved me far beyond where I ever thought I could grow. I love Eagle Heart - she is who she is - I am who I am - because of you. It's all of the love that you have poured into me that has freed me to love the Eagle Heart you loved back to life.

Remember who we are.

WOW Eagle, I have to say I share many of your sentiments and you expressed them so well. I love Eagle Heart too, and Sharon.

Same here. I read the post, sat back, then read it again. My thoughts and words seem so tiny compared to your expressions of a grateful heart. I suppose that is why you are an Eagle.

We have all been blessed by this forum, in one way or another, and I thank the good Lord above for sending Dotsie to cyberspace.

Thank you Eagle for putting the words out there for us. I think you spoke for so many of us here. I'm not a serious person (like you didn't already know that?) but sometimes I love to stop and think about how grateful I am to have this home on the net, and all of you gals for buddies. I do appreciate your thoughts and they are still with me. I imagine they will be for quite some time.

Now, everybody join hands and let's sing kumbahya...

EH, thank you for your heart felt words. You are who you are, and you are loved. You are precious, and you are cherished. Love and Light, Lynn

Eagle you are a doll!

JJ, you remind me of that Bible verse: a merry heart does good like a medicine...for me, you are the incarnation of that verse, "a merry heart" doing immeasurable healing through your gift of laughter. I personally believe that God has a very special place in His heart for people who bring laughter into other people's hearts and lives.

Thank you Chatty and Lynn for your love.

And Chick, you definitely have a gift for finding the perfect graphics...that Kumbaya is so delightful! Thank you!!

Now...now...stop that or my crown won't fit. Isn't it lovely how each woman here brings a different gift to the tables of discussion? That is one of the unique things about BWS.

This place reminds me of a lighthouse...strong, standing tall in the darkness of our lives, always there, can't be destroyed, and there is always a light ready to shine on anyone who needs to find their way.

Comforting...BWS is good for what ails ya.

Love is all we need! (There's a song in there somewhere)

Thank you, once again Eagle, for speaking for so many of us.