I met a girl today whose point of reference had been ripped from her grasp and she looked and sounded lost. The empathy I feel for such people kicked in and I found myself saying “I am so sorry that happened to you like that, I wish I had been around for you to talk to”
She was a little girl lost, in a sea of grown-up waves crashing down unmercifully on her body. She didn’t know how this new reference point was going to play out. Her life needed to be rewritten with this new lens attached. I saw her pain, it almost visible as she jerked in her seat, thrusting her body forward then throwing it back. Her arms like tentacles could not stay still. She lurched from topic to topic. I prayed for her, what else could I do. I could not rewrite her history for her, I was too busy checking in with my history to see what impact {if any} this piece of information might fit.
For me, the news made sense. It wasn’t that it explained a whole pile of stuff. It did coat everything in a layer of honesty. Because that made sense, that my whole life was somehow a lie. Or without full disclosure. But now I had that information it slotted in like the keys in the movie “city of Ember” allowing clarity to flood in my consciousness.
I choose not to name the information here, I choose to leave it anonymously in the background, I choose to love the lost girl and the found girl and I choose to be kind and love myself in the wake of this discovery.
Rebuilding Community 