noticing me

i might fear this the most.

my biggest fear is that you don’t see me.

my fear is that you never really will.

i fear you don’t need to.

i fear you won’t want to.

i fear going my whole life without ever being fully understood and therefore never being fully loved.

i fear sharing from the depths of my soul to someone distracted & preoccupied.

i fear being surrounded by people that will always be distracted & preoccupied by other things because there will always be something more important than me.

i fear going unseen & unnoticed.

my heart breaks when others go unseen & unnoticed; when others share about themselves & it dissipates into a room full of noises & voices & inattentive bodies.

my heart breaks when i see someone alone that could easily be accompanied—if only someone found him more important than one other thing occupying their lives.

most of life, even a seemingly monotonous one, can be the most meaningful of lives when simply accompanied.

i just don’t want people to feel alone.

it matters less when people are physically alone; it matters most when people are emotionally alone—misunderstood, unacknowledged, unappreciated.

there are few things worse in life than letting the days pass by while you float along being unseen.

people can only love the things they know exist.

i don’t want to be so irreplicable, indispensable, forgettable, that i can go through life unknown & therefore unloved.

i imagine there’s some old sage somewhere that feels perfectly content living a life of solitude; noticing herself, laughing at herself, asking herself who she is & how she’s doing & what she would like for dinner. i imagine she’s transcended the need to outsource attention & validation & understanding & love.

i can’t imagine how she got there.

but the thought of her feels like a step towards the light…

my heart breaks a little less when i see an old man eating alone.

my heart breaks a little less when i think of a breakup, a family separated by war, lovers separated by death.

my heart swells a little when i think of getting to know myself—instead of waiting for others to get to know me.

my heart softens a little when i think of letting you in; the possibility of being used & unappreciated,

seen & unwanted,

known & unloved.

it doesn’t feel the scariest anymore; not as devastating as it would be to worry so much about being noticed that i forget to stop & notice myself.

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