It's another Saturday and I’m propped up at a high top table in a bagel shop on the corner of Steinway and Broadway in Queens. I schedule all of my annual doctor appointments in January every year so I never have to say to ask myself, “Wait … when was the last time I went to the OBGYN?” I just finished a visit with my new optometrist who is a woman, which always brings me extra joy. Yes, my eyes are very healthy, thank you for asking.
As I mentioned last week, I have a folder of phone notes with themes, questions, and topics I've started to explore on my own the last six months but have left lingering for one reason or another: fear, shame, embarrassment, lack of words, lack of time, the list goes on. I hope to revisit some of these here, with you. But for now, I want to discuss something I keep coming back to this week.
People really are what have been getting me by. Dan, when he gets me up and out for dinner. Friends who agree to meet me at a crowded piano bar and send me cards and cookies and funny texts. My mom, holding me while I cry. But what has surprised me the most is the role of the people whom I don't know, and whom don't know me at all.
I love strangers. Sometimes I play a game with myself on the subway where I look around at others and think, “If I were in love with this person, what would I love about them?” I try to imagine them as someone who can be loved; someone who is loved and lovable for all of the most niche reasons. Someone who is going through the human experience, too.
I keep holding onto people. We need each other, as much as we don't want to. What would it do for all us if we all believed in people, too?
How do you learn to care about other people? You be with them. That doesn’t mean that you necessarily end up becoming their best friends. But their lives become meaningful to you; their existences come to matter. This is the magic trick. This is what empathy does. We become invested in the welfare of one another. And that — that’s how we hear and see each other, long before the need to start screaming to be heard or seen or for help.
The past three years of human behavior has pissed me off beyond belief. It's made me question my own ability to love other people — which I hate! I don't know the answer anymore. But I just know I'm tired of hating. I'll start there.
As I've sat here writing this,
Memories by Maroon 5 and
Pompeii by Bastille have played over the speakers in the store and caught my attention, the lyrics a reflection of the things on my mind. One about balancing remembering what and whom we've lost while remaining present, the other about how to remain optimistic in the face of tragedy. Maybe the answer is believing. What else do we have?
On the way home, there was a man walking through the train singing
Three Little Birds with such conviction that it brought me to tears. For some reason, I believe him. Everything's gonna be alright.
Thank you for reading and sharing in this life with me.
To read the last letter,
click here. As always,
reply if you have anything to share or just want to say hi. I can't wait to meet you there.
