Strangers Your unexpected therapist

[Music]

your hand

if you like the game of hide and seek i

do too

there was the thrill of hiding knowing

that your annoying brother or sister

couldn’t find you

even when they kept searching everywhere

and screaming your name

it made you feel important and it was

exciting that someone is expending a lot

of energy

to actually see you in this game we are

rewarded for hiding

and we get the attention we seek but in

the real world

when we keep everything so hidden we are

rarely seen

and the attention we seek is never given

to us

what i’ve come to realize is those who

really see me

are people that don’t even know me

last year i was walking out of my

algebra class and apparently

it was that time of the month so let me

break this down gently

metaphorically i was a french fry with a

huge blob of ketchup on me

of all the amazing subtle colors of the

universe

why couldn’t our cycle color be pale or

even colorless

but of course not it has to be red so

i’m frantically walking backwards in

hopes that no one would see my massive

stain

and i was paranoid that someone would

try to take a picture that’s all i

needed

to be plastered on social media as

hashtag frenchfry girl

this could have happened because it’s

high school and it’s a way to for crowd

than y’all

so luckily on that day a girl i had

never met

asked me if i was okay before i could

even answer she threw her sweater at me

and told me to wrap it around my waist

and then poof problem solved i spent the

next couple of days looking for this

girl and i finally saw her when i was

walking out of my physics class

i told her she’d been the greatest

friend ever to me and save me from

intense humiliation

she looked at me and said ria we’d never

be friends

and walked away i was so taken aback

and then realized that she was probably

right but i’ll come back to that

after endless failed attempts to talk to

sweater girl she finally agreed to meet

i’ll call her jane i kept pressing her

on why she insisted we would never be

she said her life was super complicated

and if she were to reveal to her friends

what was actually going on they would

just run away

as it turns out jane’s mother had been

extremely abusive forcing her to move in

with her grandparents

and unfortunately they just kept

defending her mother’s erratic behavior

we spoke for hours that day and i

remember two things about the

conversation

it was raw and effortless

jane is still extremely guarded we don’t

have a traditional friendship

we don’t go to the mall she doesn’t come

over but i couldn’t care less

because we share an incredible

connection on what really

matters and it got me thinking that

sometimes when we choose our friends we

bond over the low hanging fruits

for example if i were to take a poll of

people in this room

who enjoys watching movies eating good

food and dreams about traveling to

beautiful countries

i think we would all be the best of

friends why

because we share the same interest and

what makes us happy

so what happens when we flip this

what if we were bold enough to connect

on what makes us truly sad and dark

what if there was a website called

shatter.com

where we bonded on the intense pain we

are going through

in this site you could post the not so

fantastic news in your life

where you can reveal to others that you

are sick and tired

of pleasing everyone that the stifling

relationships you’re in

draw more comfort than having to speak

your mind

and stand alone that crippling

self-doubt is your constant companion

and on a daily basis you feel nothing

except the agony of being a massive

fraud

in this site you can tell others that

you are broke mired in debt

that your spending is a manifestation of

the profound

emptiness you feel and can never fill

that you are embroiled in bitter legal

battles with your

own flesh and blood

sounds like a webpage you would never go

to and you probably wouldn’t buy any

souvenirs from this site

so how come the site that no one visits

is the one we’re all most familiar with

and this webpage could never launch

because we all know that our medical

history is private our mental health is

private our finances are private

our legal issue are private our grades

are private our salary is private

and if these privacy laws were broken

something happens we would be completely

exposed but isn’t it odd

that everything that truly reveals the

actual pain and suffering we are going

through is

always private we have been conditioned

to believe

that privacy protects us in fact

the global cyber security industry is

valued at 156

billion dollars we spend

an enormous amount of money to ensure

that no one can really know

or understand us so

just to reassure everyone i’m not

advocating that everything needs to be

revealed

i’m just saying it shouldn’t come as any

great surprise

when the friendships and relationships

in our lives

may often seem convenient or empty

because we keep everything so hidden

and that’s why the connections we have

with strangers

can be so profound we want privacy

because it allows us to control the

narratives of

our lives but more importantly it allows

us to control what

others think of us but this can’t be

done with strangers

when we try so hard to control our image

and how others perceive us it gets

exhausting

overwhelming and understandably

sometimes

we just crack at that moment

when a stranger reaches out to us it is

so pure

because they stand to gain nothing

they just want to ease our pain and show

us their humanity

this can be life altering when they

speak to us

there’s no preparation no dress

rehearsal

they are also caught off guard the

advice they give us

isn’t polished or refined because they

have no history no data points no

patterns of our

behavior no expectation of us

they are just speaking their truth

and sometimes this is the authenticity

we crave from our own family and friends

but because they fear being rejected by

they sometimes say nothing or

they just tell us what we want to hear

even when

every fiber in their body violently

disagrees

and this can be a two-way street when

something bad happens to us

who do we turn to often times this isn’t

a parent spouse or friend

we don’t tell them because we are

ashamed and don’t want to burden them

so ironically the ones that would help

us at any cost

and go to any length to rescue us remain

in the dark

because we are terrified of worrying or

hurting them

and that’s why the connections we have

with strangers can be so beneficial

when jane reached out to me that day she

knew nothing about me

she just knew at that moment i was

unraveling so the next time i was at

school

and heard a girl sobbing in the bathroom

stall next to me

i didn’t rush out to give her her

privacy i knew she had no intention of

telling me what was going on

but in that moment she revealed

everything because her pain was intense

i was a nobody to her and she felt

safe some people may say i’m scared to

talk to those that i don’t know

i don’t want to be nosy i need to give

others their space i have too much going

on in my own life i’m a private shy

person

i don’t want to be perceived as nuts

these can

all be justifiable reasons but the next

time that you see a stranger

who is visibly distraught or embarrassed

or lost at work school

a grocery store a restaurant a

competition the streets

don’t walk away just always ask them if

they are okay

you are not saving everyone you are just

acknowledging their pain it’s easy to

justify

why we should keep our distance from

strangers we tell ourselves

i’ll just surround myself with people

who i know who are highly educated

successful and look normal and that way

they won’t be a bad influence on me or

my family

and i’ll still be empathetic to others

outside my close circle of friends

but i don’t want to associate with them

because they may be damaged and they

aren’t my problem

and we can go a step further to justify

our detachment

especially with those we feel have

brought on their own

doom and gloom this happens a lot in

high school

so and so deserves an std because they

are such a and why do we have to

help the drug addicts because they

choose to get high

and ruin their lives so logically

we don’t reach out to any of these folks

but the consequences of

anyone’s actions may be from a lifetime

of poor decisions

or it could be from just one stupid

mistake

one fleeting bad decision

either way does it even really matter

consequences don’t judge so why should

they just show up unannounced and so

should we

we just need the courage to do so

even if it’s for a person we don’t know

or we think is messed up or crazy

how about we stop demonizing the word

crazy and realize

it’s just another rung in our dna most

of us either come from crazy families

or crazy ourselves or we drive others

crazy

so when you distance yourself from

strangers you are just missing

out on a great opportunity to understand

yourself and the next time you are out

with your friends

ask yourself what do i really know about

them

what’s troubling them was i able to help

in any capacity

or did their pain make me feel

uncomfortable or worse yet

was it a source of gossip to really

connect

with one another let’s stop keeping

everything so

private and start fearlessly bonding

over our pain

how about we let go of the intense

desire

to control how our friends and family

perceive us

let’s stop disinfecting our stories

photoshopping our

images and suppressing what we really

want to say

we’re told to fake it till we make it

hide or blemishes stay cool act calm

don’t burn down don’t burn any bridges

and then we wonder why no one really

gets us i’ll tell you who will

chances are it could turn out to be a

complete

stranger

you