On connection and sadness
It is the heavy things we have in common, more often than joys. The fears. The insecurities. Sometimes we feel too ashamed to share something - like struggling with loving our body, even though it is incredible just as it is. The breakups we got over and the relationships we didn’t get fully over yet. All the small things, like being difficult to deal with when hungry. The big things, like fear of war.
It is the heavy things we connect most deeply through. When we share our insecurities and get vulnerable. Hearing somebody say: “I know how you feel, I’ve been there. It sucks, but it can get better over time” still helps, even if it won’t immediately solve everything. Knowing someone has stepped into the same shit as you just did will help you to feel connected to one another just a little more.
And yet, these are all the things we speak the least about. I don’t believe anyone who claims they never said “I’m fine” when they weren’t. It does not matter why. Maybe if it is over the fear of being seen as weak. Perhaps it is not to seem incompetent to deal with life that everyone else seems to have all figured out. Maybe it is simply the fear of being seen - even though it only means being seen as human. We talk weather, we talk work, heck, we’d often rather talk about other people and their vulnerabilities than our own.
What if we changed the narrative? What if we fully embraced the concept of sharing things as they are – about ourselves and not about others? You are right. It might not always be appropriate – and what a good cause to employ common sense that is. If you’re still doubtful, you are right again. It might feel off to share that with everyone – what an opportunity to be selective about who you spend your time and share your energy with. To create circles that might be smaller but full of relationships built on an actual, deep, wonderful, human connection. What a world to live in that would be.
A world in which we connect over who we are and not divide over claiming what we aren’t.
“All we are saying is, give peace a chance.”
