Carrying

Some days it's all I see: the people hurting, the people not getting enough of what they need. The need itself is startling. I guess I'm just amazed at how much we do need—how much we need and hate owning up to it.

Pride stands in the way of many things, but this shouldn't be one of them.

I know what it's like to need—to need so badly you want to rip your guts out and cuddle them yourself. It's achy like your legs after a run. You know that feeling when you're in bed and it's late and you can't stop kicking around, because... it isn't a sharp pain, but it's uncomfortable (your legs).

For me, the only thing worse than that pain (in respect to needs) is watching other people experience it.

Why? Why do I think I'm some Superman? I don't. I know I can't save you, as much as I wish, wish, wish. But I can, at least, be the pillow you rest your achy legs on or the rain that comes to sing you to sleep at last.

Sometimes it feels like I'm carrying around everyone with me: the pain and the disappointment, the insecurities most of all. It's not about being a martyr or a saint or a Superman-wannabe. It's about knowing how it feels, experiencing it so much (becoming a pro at it, even) that seeing anyone else go through it breaks my heart.

I am the thing I needed.

Isn't that crazy?

Kelly once told me that we support people in the ways we want to be supported. We weren't talking about emotional support necessarily, but I think it applies. And ever since she said that, I can't forget it. The downside, though, is that sometimes the way we want to be treated isn't the way the other wants to be.

Learning.

I don't want it ever to stop, though: the supporting. I don't want people to know how heavy it can be to carry them, and then stop allowing me to be there. Carrying heals me too. All the sad from before is slowly being washed away... the gently push of the tide (back and forth) until little by little, one sharp edge at a time, it reaches the sand. The sadness dries up there in the sun, the only happy. Constant.

mt