I hear ya, I think... TT.
But instead of mutual "abandonment", I see the current slowness on the board as a sign of individual growth: we're re-connecting with 3-D life in our various ways. The zeitgeist of the group evolves over time - people came and went even when this was a crazy busy place. The reason for being here now can change, too. And dear, you have the absolute right to feel whatever you feel!
I see and feel the sadness, too... but at the same time, I'm so glad for everyone's busyness, their self-sufficiency to keep working through on their own. And life calls... whether it's family, studies, work, friends and other relationships... I put my life "on hold" to deal with what I had run away from and was forced to let go, 40 years ago. That work is over and my life needs me. I've learned healthier ways to cope... now, I need to put those lessons to use and practice them.
For me, "there" is now - and it's totally up to me to decide whether to continue the "old" stuff or make what I've wanted & longed for, REAL. Absolutely nothing in the way... not even my mother's continued patterns of being. I can ignore her and not answer the phone... and I CAN say what I think & feel - she is so self-involved that she barely notices, unless I set a boundary with her... tee-hee!... guess what I'm going to do a lot of?? When she attacks, she's actually giving me the opportunity to change the way it affects me... to overcome the old crushing, suffocating feelings... and to validate my self, my reality, and to deny her the satisfaction being able to hurt me. I choose how I feel and I am no longer surprised at the depths she will sink to, to try to control my feelings. I am claiming my right to my own life, free of the old protective, sabotaging, defense-patterns of surviving abuse.
And still - I visit here every day. Each person here has been a gift, to me. And I visit to see if I can return the favor, for someone. To laugh a bit, share our "shared secret" of what it's like to walk through valleys of shadows to peace and light. To be able to say: yeah, I think I know what you're saying and how that feels. For the longest time, I felt like I was the only person who felt "like that"... as if I was so weird, screwed up, strange... and I felt like this made me bad or less than, somehow. This community isn't so much "virtual", in that it became "home" for me - the place where people understand, sympathasize, encourage, support, and shed light on the darkest parts of the path... to light the way to where I am now.
Lately, I've been finding that many people in 3-D are starting to share the same kinds of feelings; the same kinds of experiences. As if it's a common, shared experience of the human condition... and not weird at all. Not so unusual. There is a real need "out there" for the kinds of things we've learned and in some surprising people and situations. I find myself explaining what I've been through - it just falls out of my mouth - and then pointing them down the path to "somewhere else". Passing it on.
