How strange a thing life is...
How strange a thing is life when you think about it.
Each one of us, inhabiting bodies that may function at a 100% or 10% or somewhere in between; each of us carrying baggage - some heavy, some lighter, everyone affected by it differently.
How strange a thing is life that my babies died but I am still alive, and I am supposed to live as if the worst possible thing didn’t happen to me.
How strange a thing is life that my body has been riddled with illness for decades now, and yet I still expect myself to function fully, to work like I am healthy, to brave the storm as if it is invisible.
How strange a thing is life when you think about the trauma we know we have endured and the trauma we have endured but blocked out.
How strange a thing is life when we think about the people walking beside us and the tabs that are open in their minds. Is it a grocery list? A thick wave of sadness? A draft of an email? Maybe a list of errands, cataloged by location and proximity to one another? Is it a longing, a loss, a hope, a dream?
How strange a thing is life when we know the answers to these questions sometimes for strangers more intimately than our partners or our friends or our children or our parents.
How strange a thing is life when these answers dictate who we are as people and yet come with implicit questions we’re never supposed to ask one another.
How strange a thing is life when the answer to how you are is always supposed to be okay.
When the truth is full of too many words, too much realness to share so we pretend it doesn’t exist.
How strange a thing is life when strangers are sometimes closer than friends and friends feel more like strangers. When we trip over our words and we wish for someone to just simply understand where our hearts lie without having to explain every moment, every event, every scenario that has shaped the people we are at this moment in time.