Driving Home

As I was driving out of that giant apartment complex, with its enormous speed bumps that make you slow down and contemplate all those little dwellings, I hurt so badly, and I thought about all the people there who faced some kind of explosion in their lives, a divorce, a death, debt, people who are far more accustomed to the kind of pain I'm just getting to know, and they carry this around inside their stomachs every day, and I just wanted to start knocking on doors and hugging people and crying on their shoulders until they let some of it out with me and knew that someone got it. That someone else who was stumbling through their lives, oblivious to all their suffering, finally understood. And then I drove past the trailer park. And then my little suburban neighborhood with the little-houses-made-of-ticky-tacky-and-they-all-look-just-the-same, and I knew most of them contain people who are hiding their pain inside those houses. And I just can't hug enough people. And I just can't cry enough for them.

Tomorrow I will put on a smile and push through another day, greeting all the other people who are also trying to push through, flashing our plastered-on smiles at one another, our eyes vacant, unfocused, looking inside at that place we don't want to see. I can't pretend I'll be more observant or more sensitive or the saint you deserve. I'll just be with you. But I'll be more with you. I won't tell you that you aren't alone. But we'll be a little more together in our loneliness, and I hope that's some timid little knock at your door.