I don’t know anything about you. You looked young. Far younger than me, clearly, and I still feel young. Not the young at heart that well-adjusted older people like to brag about, but the kind of young that makes you feel wary of the world, apprehensive, and uncertain. The kind of young it seems you still are, in both age and disposition. I’m edging into my forties now, I’m supposed to be old, but you, you still have time to feel scared and alone.
That’s what you seemed to be as I passed by, only glancing long enough to log the broadest details about you. You were pretty but bundled up in unflattering winter clothes, possibly because you don’t want to attract attention while you take your child out in the park. Your baby seemed happy and healthy. I don’t know if you know his father, if he’s in the picture, or if you have anybody else to stand by your side, whether they be a partner, a family member, a friend. Maybe you have all of these things and I glimpsed you in one of those moments we all have, when you look around and ask yourself if this is your life, and you wonder how you got there, and what will lie ahead. Those moments that come, even in great stretches of happiness, comfort, and security, when you just don’t know how things will work out, and the older you get, and the more you feel that others rely on you and you rely on them…the more frightening those moments can feel.
I wanted to tell you, as somebody who doesn’t know you, who will likely never see you again, and even if he did, I would never recognize you (hell I don’t think I could pick you out of a lineup now, only hours later) that I think you will be fine. The days will not always be grey, and cold, and lonely. Whatever lays upon your heart and your mind will not always lay there. I wanted to tell you because this is what I need, constantly, over and over again. I used to belive when I was a child that growing up meant that need would go away. That I would grow into some version of myself that didn’t need to be told it would be OK, but I never did. I don’t think any of us do. Some of us make do without, and others go as long as they can until they break down and confess what they need. Sometimes they get it, sometimes they don’t.
I wanted to tell you, stranger to stranger, that it would be OK. Because maybe, in that moment, you needed it. Like I did.
SUPER ROLLER DISCO MONKEY HULLABALOO!!!! 