archived I hear you, sometimes

Sometimes when the most tragic of events occur there is no drama, no screaming, dropping to your knees, no one to hold you and tell you it will be ok. Rather you find yourself in an empty tunnel, if you scream you will hear only the echo of your own screams. It will go on echoing untill it fades leaving you alone and quiet again. The world continues to rotate, at neck-breaking speeds, images swirling together unlike any roller coaster that could ever exist. At that moment the only thing that you can focus on is yourself.

Sometimes when you find your way out of that tunnel, and poke your head up like a burrowed animal, the light is blinding. Humanity is still racing, groping, pushing to get ahead of one another. The pain is piercing, the sounds are crippling, and no one even notices that you have burrowed away like the tiny rodent that you are, worse is that they haven't noticed that you re-entererd their world, or that you were ever missing at all.

Sometimes you notice how self-serving, self-absorbed the broad majority seems to be. Politeness is overlooked, common courtesy dismissed, a sense of entitlement replacing graciousness. Parents neglecting their children, family's broken and patched together, friendships destroyed by jealousy, lack of time, lack of compassion.

Sometimes in this place you look inward, farther than you ever knew you could go. Again you are blinded by a light, a light that all of your ancestors before you have carried and buried in your soul, the light that burns to keep you warm, comforted, secure. The strength of those who endured the unthinkable, who fought for you to be here, who persevered in times you can't even endure thinking about.

Sometimes you realize that this breath inside you is a gift, the heart that beats inside you a symbol of strength and power beating, beating, beating, in a rhythm of its own, indifferent to your trivial pursuits and disappointments, for you, on and on and on.

Sometimes you see that other people are hurting, they too have burrowed in their holes, some deeper than you realized the earth could go. Some just underneath the surface, and you too have failed to realize that they were gone. Failed to realize when they re-entered, stronger or weaker from their own personal batttles. Perhaps you have suffered similar losses, sifted through similar lessons, caught glances of one another in the wars.

Sometimes, you just need to take a moment, take stock in your being, remember what makes you thrive, find your backbone, dust it off and stand tall because of it. Remember whose shoulders you stand on, remember who is standing on yours.