Weak

If there is something that is true about the human-animal it’s that we can all go through the very same things in the same ways and each of us will experience it differently. 

The collection of us come from different backgrounds, different make-ups, and have different chemistries at work in us. While ‘nothing is new’, and ‘no one is unique’ are to common expressions and beliefs, the fact is that it’d be all but impossible to find two people who were born to the same situation, grew up in the same sort of way, and have similar genetics. 

We want to believe we are both unique but also the same. 

Both are true. 

We are uniquely the same. 

All part of the same species but we all have things, minor or major, that make us different. 

So, knowing that it always surprises me when people declare out of hand that the way someone else experiences things differently than they do is weak. We can think of it in the same way we do the things we eat that have ‘heat’. Some people say ‘the hotter the better’ while another person thinks mayonnaise is too spicy. 

We love to put ourselves anecdotally into one another’s loafers and play dress and declare, ‘well, this is what I would do’ knowing full well that of COURSE we’d do things differently because WE are different. Good, bad, whatever. 

We’re different.

No two alike. 

Same variety, different flavor. 

Yet we just can’t see past our own viewpoint and allow that we all feel what we feel how we feel it. 

The heart breaks alone and loneliness, that cancer of the spirit, is a burden none can share. 

Neither is desperation. 

Or sorrow. 

We can try, try SO hard to be there for one another in those hard, desperate times, but in the end we can only be a voice, an ear, and a shoulder. 

The darkness still comes and you still have to face it alone. 

And sadly, too many of us are consumed by it. 

Eaten alive by demons of the heart and mind we’ll never see. 

Swallowed by momentary lapses of sanity doing something that, could they see the light that lives past that darkness, through it, they’d never do. 

How dare we say someone is weak that takes their own lives?

We can mourn then, ache for them, cry for them, rage at them, even hate them, but since we can neither remove their pain nor fully ease it, how can we judge them?
Because we are built differently and process pain differently we believe that well, since WE’D never do that no one else should.

Which is flawed logic. 

Is insanity. 

What it is is our way of trying to guard ourselves against grief itself. 

Against the horror of – could I do that?

Could we? 

And how dare we point our finger at how others go through life when we need vitamins, and supplements, and medications, and therapies, and on and on and on to survive?

We do what we need to do to make it through. 

Unfortunately, some of us still come up short. 

We shouldn’t scorn them, or deride them but remember them, and mourn them, and cherish them. 

Life is the greatest gift we all receive. 

The ability to experience joy, love, satisfaction, ecstasy, pain, sorrow, loss, and so much more. The wide and varied flavors that make life so special. We all have times though when we hate the life we have. For some, it’s a moment, and for others, it’s longer. 

Much longer. 

Were but it as easy as just flipping a switch to see that maybe things aren’t as bad as you think. 

As much as we should cherish the life we have, this one, precious life, we don’t have the right to judge people who find themselves broken in a way that simple patching won’t fix. 

We can do everything we can to help them, and we should, but in the end, they have to choose life. 

And choosing it, or its alternative is the loneliest decision you can ever make. 

I wish this world wasn’t so full of hate, fear, and loneliness. 

I wish that people who feel they are ‘different’ could understand that they belong. 

I wish that lonely people could find others like them and connect. 

I wish we had answers to the diseases that take us from ourselves. 

That isn’t the world we live in. 

But what we have is one another. 

We have the life raft of humanity that is going through the same or similar stuff, is struggling every day, and is there. 

We just have to be…there. 

We need to look up from our screens and away from our mirrors and at one another and be present. 

We won’t save everyone. 

But we might save some. 

By just being there. 

Being the person they needed to hear them, feel them, see them. 

By being another flame against the darkness and if there are enough of us we’ll push the darkness away for another night. 

That’s pretty amazing. 

We can’t save everyone, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to. 

They’re worth it. 

You’re worth it. 

…c…