E-mail Correspondence with Aurora- reprinted with permission

From Aurora who is currently traveling with friends after a 2 week organized trip (I miss her and can't wait for her to come back but I am excited that this is proving to be such a good experience for her- if also a bit envious)
one of the greatest parts of the trip was how everyone in the group opened up so freely and honestly that i really feel that i am a better, or at least, happier, free-er person than when i left. i thought i'd share this with you cuz i feel like you might appreciate this - so nearly every day we had a session on spirituality and everyone had to share their thoughts with the group. not feeling particularly spiritual (and at first very resistant to such exercises) i could never come up with a good comment, and hated that. finally, the last night of the trip -last shabbat at seudah shlishit we had to open up for the last time and i finally was able to express something real and true - maybe not spiritual exactly, but authentic. so i got up (and i was the last person to speak) and, fighting back embarassing tears, i said taht the hardest part of the trip for me was not the extreme sports or the hiking or rapelling, because i can do any of those things easily. the hardest part for me, and one of the most transformative aspects of the trip was being with a group of 30 strangers who were so free with their thoughts and feelings and i admired and respected the way they shared with each other and longed to be able to finally do the same. after that all these ppl kept coming up to me and hugging me and it was so weird and freeing and great. ppl often say (and tell me) that i'm cool, but i know it's not a good thing, because it really just means that i don't let them or anyone see my vulnerable side so i keep ppl at a distance. my goal right now, for the rest of my tri pand the rest of my life is to stay connected to ppl - to have real meaningful relationships with others and of course with myself. its taken me sooooo long to get to this place - and so much unhappiness along the way, but i am just glad to say that right now, today, i'm ok, maybe even happy. as for tomorrow, we'll see. right now i take it one day at a time...

My response-
thanks so much for sharing your thoughts and story from the trip- i really appreciate it! it's great to hear how this is working for you and i'm looking forward to finding something that works for me. it's good to hear that you might be happy- i htink you are- some of us have a harder time recognizing it. and i have to say that i think your goals are great and that you are right about letting people see your vulnerabilty and really see you- i guess a lot of the time, i want people to think i'm cool and it's fun when they do but ultimately lonely b/c they dont' really know me. i guess this blog is among other things an attempt to work on it and that is why i share it with a few select people that i think will get it. people i think i can have meaningful relationships with.
if you dont' mind i would love to paste some of this correspondence (really just about the cool stuff) on my blog as well as link to your blog- i think the few people that see my blog would appreciate it, i am starting to think of it as the broken girls club but people are on different stages of their journey and can be inspirational b/c i'm trying to remember that i dont have stay a broken girl.
so good to hear from you- keep me updated on waht you are doing and thinking

Aurora has a really great blog as well- I will send the link to anyone who is interested- let me know