Heart To Heart

He sent me an email explaining his small epiphany. In the midst of brushing his teeth, it came to him, like an unexpected soft rain gracing a humid afternoon. We all have problems, he said.

Yes, including me. I must get annoyed, he thought, that everyone comes to me with their problems, that everyone seeks out my wisdom, my advice, when things take a turn for the worse. It must be a burden. It must be difficult to feel like the weight of the world hangs on my shoulders.

I’ll admit it. It is. It’s difficult to watch my loved ones cry, to listen to their pain, to feel my heart break in rhythm with their own. It’s painful to experience their experience. It’s agonizing to be incapable of protecting myself from the sadness in this world.

For these past couple of weeks, part of me has longed to take the easier path, to cut myself off from emotions, to become numb to the suffering that surrounds me. Part of me has wished that I didn’t know what I know, that I wasn’t the person everyone knows me to be. Because it would just be so much easier to be ignorant and self-absorbed. It would be so much easier not to care.

But I do care, and I can’t seem to ever stop myself from caring. I can’t seem to separate my own troubles from those of my friends. I can’t seem to remove myself from their hurt. I hurt too. I feel it all, and maybe sometimes, even more intensely than those going through it. I’ve spent these past few weeks being bombarded with feelings of anger and bitterness and utter devastation. I’ve lashed out at people who probably didn’t deserve it, and I’ve cried myself to sleep more nights than I’d care to admit. I don’t like my sorrow and it isn’t even mine.

At the same time, it is. I want my friends to come to me. I’m grateful that they come to me. I’m honored that they come to me. It's just that I’ve been wishing I knew how to protect myself. I’ve been wishing I knew how to guard my heart. I’ve been wishing I could make a distinction between their hearts and mine.

This morning I awoke to an email from another friend. It was honest and emotional and filled with the kind of reality I’m grateful my friends share with me. He’s been going through a lot this past month. What struck me most was that among the girl-trouble, and two more family divorces in the works, and struggles with missing college funds, he went on to say that he’d been up all night worrying about the war in Israel. Because their pain is his pain. Because all of human suffering is our own inherit human suffering.

And maybe that’s the way it should be. Maybe the whole idea is that we are all one, and that none of us are ever truly content because we don’t live in a blissful world. Nor would we ever really want to. Life is painful. That’s how we know we’re alive. I feel that pain. That’s how I know I love.

And as appealing as it may be to shut myself off from all of that, the truth is, I would rather cry than wear an ignorant smile. I would rather feel everything than be incapable of feeling anything. I would rather have my friends weep in my arms than weep alone. I hope that they know that. I hope that I know it too.