A Few Words on Connection and Goodbyes
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In July 2019, inkMend began sharing “Gentle Prompt”s in an effort to get us talking about human issues and the healing that comes during and after.
Our latest prompt, Connection, focuses on how important and influential relationships can be in both individual and conceptual ways — How lonely we are. Those times when all we want is to be heard, but can’t bring ourselves to reach out. How we fall in love with toxic people and cannot convince ourselves to let go of “potential”.
And, then the other side of the coin — how friendships uplift us and make us better people, how we learn self-love by watching others grow to love themselves, how teachers, or social workers, or counselors, remind us we are worth every bit of good that comes our way (and then some).
Your Words on Connection…
Our treasured Samantha Beach wrote a moving and relatable letter to her online friends and readers of inkMend in which she divulges very real feelings of loneliness, battles with mental and physical health, and the struggle of staying connected to people when you cannot leave your home.
In just a few short hours, Samantha has received an outpouring of generous and honest support from Medium writers and readers — proving connection can be had nearly anywhere we go, as long as we’re open to receiving it.
Come share the love with us…
Sally Gallagher writes about her connection to her childhood — the farm, the cows, the family. It’s touching, vivid, and worth your time.
Vaishali Paliwal shares her connection to Earth — the only planet likely to sustain us. This poem moves us to consider how our choices affect all living creatures, even when we don’t mean to, and especially if we don’t care.
Laura Fox connects to her inner child and passes the wisdom of self-love on to the next generation.
and our very own editor, Leah J. 🕊, encourages us to reach out by reminding us of a unifying humanity in The Outliers.
Some other moving reads from September:
Kayla Douglas — A Letter to My Mom
Sand Rodziewicz — What am I after Rape?
Christina Ward 🌼 — Sonnet 2, Never Again
Ashwini Dodani — Free Your Soul from that Guilt
Marie Prichard — Mirror, Mirror on the Wall…
We’ll be writing about Connection until the second week of October, or for as long as the topic inspires you. You can expect a new gentle prompt around 10/10.
and on saying “Goodbye”
August’s prompt was all about “goodbye” — sometimes we say it well, others we wait too long, and too often we only wish we had the chance to say it at all. Below are just a few of our writer’s responses to this tender prompt.
Marie Prichard — The Pain of Estrangement…A Mother Left Behind
Laura Fox — Grieving for the Living
Mary McGrath — The Panic Beneath Her
Chris Drew — There is a Season
Ashley Peterson — I Don’t Know How to Goodbye
LB — Mr. Whimsy
Samantha Beach — There’s One Word My Husband and I Won’t Say…
inkMend is a writer’s safe space on Medium to express experience with pain and write to heal from trauma. Inspired non-fiction, memoir, fiction, and poetry welcome.
If you’d like to write for inkMend you can read more about our focus and how to submit HERE.
