As a rule, I’m a cheerful woman. Not many people see me when I’m down, and that’s by design. My darker days are pretty intense, and unlike many who turn to friends or even social media for rescue, my response to a hard and unfeeling world is withdrawal.

I understand why. Oh yeah, I did my years of therapy. As a kid I often had no allies, so traumas were handled alone, or just not handled. My family has let me down so many times that I never expect support, that would be insanity, why would they behave differently this time? Truth is, they can’t handle me or my sensitivity. Maybe they are just tired of me.

Because you see, when you feel empathy for people who are suffering, and I mean everyone, sometimes it’s too much. When you rage at the ignorance and cruelty in the world to the point of feeling debilitated, sometimes it’s too much. And when you think, if I just try harder to explain it, they will understand, only to discover that they won’t, they can’t, and, worst of all, they don’t care, sometimes it’s too much.

I will never understand how a person cannot put themselves in another’s shoes. It’s easy for me. I was naturally like that to begin with, and then I acted, and then I wrote, and to do either well is to dive inside the endless myriad of pain and joy that roils and tosses and toys within any individual—each of whom live in their own, vast, personal sea. I can leap into their world, imagine the history that created them, reach into my gut to find the triggers that control them and that would make me do the same. That part is easy for me. What’s hard for me, is to not feel it, to look away.

So there are somethings I cannot do. Still, sometimes I do them, opening myself up. I cannot read comments on most posts. What others may see as a mean statement I feel as a cruel slash that guts humanity. Why? I always wonder, why can’t you be kind? What does it cost you? And there are some things I shouldn’t do, like step in if someone is being mistreated or bullied, that experience will stay with me for days, I cannot shake it, but I do it anyways.

There are wonderful, feeling, giving people, of course. But…

The truth is, most people see things in a very small way. And I have always, always needed to see very far. Traveling. helps, being open to a huge variety of cultures and lifestyles helps, talking and listening to everyone’s stories helps. I find all of that fascinating, but I still find it hard to understand why some people’s stories are filled with ignorance and cruelty. It’s only ever about them, it’s as though they are standing in a tiny room, they cannot see father than they can reach. And their arms are firmly crossed over their stubborn chests. They aren’t reaching out at all.

I suppose that’s why I prefer to spend most of my time alone, or with my husband. He understands all this about me of course, but on those days when he’s had enough too, it can be especially murky.

And so, sometimes, I head for the shore, or the forest, and I cry. Not pretty little soap opera drips, but gut-churning, screaming cries that rack my body and sound so ugly and harsh that it pains my own ears. I feel the fall, the depression, the hopelessness, and all the apathy in the people that screams in my face that there is no way this world can be a better place.

I fall into it, I let it engulf me, I swim out into it and float, churning and gasping until there is nothing left. And there I lie, empty, indifferent, unable to even get up.

One day, perhaps, I will not find my way back. I do not yet know. But so far, there has always been something after the release, a moment when so much has flowed out of me that there is finally a tiny crack of space where I can take in, I can glimpse some small beauty, I can hear a tiny sound of life, I can sense the wind on my face, and slowly, ever so slowly, I am drawn back to hope, to life, and the strength that I know is profound.

My strength is huge, because it is connected to everyone else.

My sadness is vast, because we so often dessert each other.

My life is a speck in a magnificent universe.

That thought brings me such comfort.

A bird swoops with easy abandon.

The water is liquid twilight.

The night is falling.

Time to go home.

We are all connected. No matter what.

Shari, September 4th 2024