a group of eight i've come to love.

When these walls crumble yet again,

friends help me mend my heart. Friends who text me the next day with syringefuls of encouragement, love, happiness, strength - a mixture of gold. This group of eight, brought together by nothing but passion, its individual members take turns to heal me every time the walls crumble. Which is very frequently.

Taking things one day at a time is how I've managed to get through the past eighteen years, and now it's about getting by an hour at a time, and it's working. I'm not strong yet, still weak, but becoming numb, sometimes even happily numb, which is amazing. No sadness, just sleep and chocolate and the occasional wandering of the mind into the happy bits of the recent past - and boundless fantasies: of arms and laps and lips and heartbeats.

I can't imagine what life will be like the day I find strength. Maybe life will become boring and I'll no longer find the pain in me to write, or the strength will prevent myself from stirring up the memories and pain that I need to write.

What is strength like? I envision strength to be knowing I'm worth something more and being able to say I've had enough and walking away with my head held high knowing it's for the better. I was talking about God's strength with Abi and she said 'Perhaps it's not so much about acquiring God's strength but relying on His strength to get you by.'

I'm getting by now, through the slightly-happy-numbness of my heart and the weird ability to get by without texting you, and even being able to reread your texts and revisit memories fondly. And friends, friends. The different pals in this group of eight, as well as a couple of others in the larger group of forty-two, have seen me through the different periods of time, the different chapters of this story (but through the one same theme that runs through them all) and it's just amazing how they help stem the flow of negativity.

To the one who keeps telling me that any guy of mine is a lucky guy, who texts me just to make sure my mind is constantly distracted from the painful thoughts, who gets me talking about the happier memories and helps me realise I'm smiling again.

To the one who sends me "a lot a lot of hearts" to make me heal faster, even though you don't really know what's making me break apart.

To the one who reassures me of God's presence in me, even though you don't know the exact reason for my pain either, and choose not to probe.

Turn back time three or four weeks and it would've been a different set of pals from this group holding these syringes of love. It's interesting to know. Not that they don't hold them anymore, but it's interesting that you three should be the ones to send me these little messages of strength now. Maybe God's coming to me through every single member of this group of eight, like an invisible thread of strength, tightening the bonds between us.

By the way, I'm really okay. I wonder how you're feeling.