Expectations of Empathy

This morning at work, I was returning from a meeting and passed a colleague. As she passed, I sensed it.

She was asking someone on my team a question when I sidled up to her and waited for her to finish her query. As she turned, I simply put my arms around her. 

"Hi Nadia," I said quietly, "I think you need a hug right now."

And she just started crying. There in my arms, she held on and sobbed. 

I think it's because I know what it's like to hold in so much pain, and contain all the grief in a very tight vessel that you think you've buried deep inside that I am able to sense it so acutely and tangibly in others.

I recall recently talking to someone very important to me and we were discussing our lives, and also that thing about being empaths. I recall pondering the idea that I sometimes tell myself that I am able to absorb all the pain that is out there in the world and perhaps help mitigate the anguish and despair that is out there, if perhaps somehow, even a little bit, it makes the world we live in a better place.

I don't know. Maybe it's a way of surviving for me. I've done my share of locking out people and pushing away those who care simply from a deeply entrenched emotional claustrophobia that maybe everything that comes my way is just a way of me getting my share.

Then again, just the way I spotted Nadia throughout the day chatting with colleagues, making jokes, cackling to her own surprise, I can smile to myself to know that perhaps just by my own small gestures I can provide comfort to others and help lighten the loads they are carrying just by acknowledging that I care.

There'll always be the people who will make sure you know that they care, not by assuming you know, but by their behaviour. It's also ok to let go of the naive idea that you can ever be so important to be someone's #1. Be your own #1. 

Canopy of Change

Sometimes I forget how easily the sight of a bird in flight, in flit, in air fills me with contentment. 

In the same way that soaring along a ravine path under the canopy of the newly-adorned trees fills me with a certain type of ecstasy: wind rushing through my hair, against my ears, into my face, with the sweet soundtrack of serendipity that is nature.

Or the whimsical pleasure of having random grandmothers - throughout the day, and quite independent of one another - strike up conversations:

"We ought to get a discount for this, don't you think?" says the white-haired little woman, as we disembarked off a bus that stopped 15 feet from the actual stop, making us walk further to the intersection.

"What soup is that?" enquired a smiley lola, "... oh, I've never had lentil and kale soup in my life!" 

"yes darlin', is the weather of romance I tell ya," winked a Jamaican momma, upon catching me smiling as I walked home, swinging my bag.

Maybe it's the season: Spring has always filled me with a burgeoning sense of joy. The beckoning of warmth, the tendrils of hope, the aroma of a beautiful tomorrow tantalizing our senses from around the corner. 

Maybe it's more. I've always pondered about my relationship with change. I've written about it often enough...and sometimes I wonder whether it's a love-hate relationship. The idea of new things, new ideas, new possibilities, new opportunities fills me with a sense of being. It's hard to describe. Sometimes I just put it down to my innate sense of curiosity and irreverent urge of pushing boundaries.

Maybe its - well, that's for another post. Before the next thunderstorm drops, I've to don my running shoes and hit the ground running for another dose of ecstasy.

The Chaos of Reckless Loneliness

Lately, she's stopped being alone. And yet, she finds herself lost in a starker, darker, loneliness than she's experienced in a long while.

How did she allow this door to open again? She's kept it shut, locked tight, waterproof—almost—for a very long time.. and somehow, without realizing, the door's eased its way open again.

She's put up too many guards over the years — successfully building out an empire of aloofness and detachment that's only served exceedingly well. And in the blink of an eye, somehow she's allowed it all to vanish, evaporate, in the blink of an eye.

And yet this loneliness seems the worst sort. It's addicting, calls her name in the middle of uneasy dreams, whispering into her ear whilst she's otherwise occupied. She's constantly seeking it out. It's a strange ache: she's catapulted head over heels into a black hole of chaos. She's not sure if its killing her or she's only revived.

And yet, despite it all, she's always been one to jump into the deep end, launch herself into the air without a parachute ... so maybe this time, despite the agony, despite the reckless hope — perhaps, she'll finally fly.