My people are asleep 3 states away from me tonight. I miss them. Especially the littlest one who will call for me tonight and at 2am I won’t be rocking her, with her fingers wrapped around my upper arm, stroking my skin, whispering her tiny breaths in and out in a miracle I remember most when the house is asleep.

Push, rock, push, rock, we leave footprints on each other – this old carpet and me.

Zoe cradled in the hush against my breast. Her curls each a prayer for grace and patience and forbearance. How I want her to know how much I loved her. How I want brave for her even though I know it can come at a cost. Of fear or failing or being left out or the mean girls.

Turns out one can drive a minivan and still feel like the last girl picked in gym.

If you are going to blot your life and stories down on paper you will need people to pick you up when the going gets hard and that mini van feels lonely.

Stories are not lived alone.

Stories need to be written with back up. With friends who listen. With cheerleaders. Even one will do over a cup of hot chocolate at Panera.

And if you can’t find one, I’m going to loan you one of mine.

Because every Friday for nearly two years now hundreds of people join a kind of writing flash mob over here.

They are brave, not fearless. Because they look fear in the eye and write anyway.

For five minutes flat. All on the same prompt that I post here at 1 minute past midnight EST ever Friday. And they cheer the loudest and the longest and the most enthusiastically for one another with the hashtag #FMFParty that I have yet see online.

No extreme editing; no worrying about perfect grammar, font, or punctuation.

Unscripted. Unedited. Real.

Supportive, encouraging, delighted.

Like friends.

And tonight a group of us will be together at the Allume blogging conference. So we figured, why not meet up and write together too? Join us on Twitter with the hashtag #FMFParty and we’ll pick a topic and announce it EARLY for everyone at 10:30pm. And we’ll all still write and all still link up at midnight.

You can join us by clicking here and stepping into a little Google Connect live link (that maybe will work and maybe won’t) but we’re gonna give it a shot.

People need people.

Thank you for being some of my most favorite people, like, ever.

LJ