The most honest testament I’ve ever encountered by the essence of my own wits has truly been: you are never ever alone and, no matter the shortcomings of your guarded mind, or the self-hate storm that it spins you in, you never will be. Do you not believe me? Well, sometimes I don’t believe myself, but there are some things that I will tell you that you can then sew into the tapestry of your mind. I could try to give you a few pieces of cloth, but what you do with them will be something that I cannot predict of, something that I can only lay upon your hands and aspire for some good consequences to run through the veins in your wrists, full of a newfound positivity, an impulse to be who you are, perhaps? Anyhow, your joy and sadness lie with you forevermore, so transform them, do with them what you will. Most of all, accept them as the ocean accepts the river.

So it happens that all this talk of joy, sadness, and loneliness makes one form a story of sorts.

There was once a petal that lay on the ground, dead it was, fallen from what it called its family, but that did not stop the whimsical kindergartener from stumbling with the shortest legs in the park and picking the late pink blossom up. He waved it around like a lottery ticket, whilst the thin petal’s soul felt that it wasn’t even worth a dime. The child took it home with him and kept it on his side table, letting the bright tint of the petal shine in his eyes. Days went by and the pink rusted into a brown unlike any other. Despite that, the child used it sometimes as a bookmark for his picture books or a surprise to show to his friends. For the toddler, that petal was the prettiest thing he had ever encountered. Somewhere in these few days, the petal’s soul hummed a tune so alive that it felt as though it had never been neglected in the first place.

We are alike to this petal. No matter how alone we may think we are, we never really are. You may think that you have no one but you cannot avoid the world and its people around us, and I promise that one, be it a total stranger, would take you in their care immediately. Being lonely in this vast, vast universe is something that I deem impossible.

There are days when betraying thoughts berate the mind and despite having your friends, your family, or really anyone at all, you feel as though your worth is crushed under the weight of seemingly nothing. But here is the truth of it all; to those carers, those lovers that you may have, you are probably the most beautiful person that they know (inside and out). Think of it like this: to you, there must be at least one person whom you deem the prettiest soul to grace this earth. For every person that you can think of, there lies another person who they’d give that same honorary title to. So then, who really is ugly? Who really is unimportant? Or whose presence is dismissible? The answer is quite simple: none of us. Somehow, in the chaos of the mongering of the daily life, we are all loved. We are all gorgeous just the way we are. We exist to be heavenly in even one living being’s eyes and by heavenly I do not mean spectacular and shining, although that isn’t impossible, but I also mean ordinarily heavenly, the kind that is seen in the sparkling eyes of a toddler, the hearty laugh of a stranger, the rare color of lilac blossoms, or even the feeling that surges through your blood when a loved one knowingly throws the cutest of tantrums.

Be reminded, that even if a tree gives you the shade you need, even if it is for a few minutes, in those few minutes you were loved and cared for. Absolutely you were. When your humour sparked up someone’s day, their mind whispered a soft “thank you”, the homeless cat that shows up at the porch of my house every day, multiple times, is cared for, we feed her with the food she needs, and if she were to ever require it, we would show up for her without a hint of hesitation. The homeless in her label exists but it is not her truth, it is just a word. When a patient is admitted at a hospital, that stranger of a doctor, no matter how professional they may seem on the surface, pray to be able to save and to save well, to let that person live a day more, a month more, a year more; is there no care in that? There is compassion and love for even those we don’t know of, but are stuck in crisis. There are prayers and hopes from every corner of the world for those stuck in rubble they cannot overthrow. They sound like murmurs combined into a chant. Even if for a minute you are in the thoughts of someone, then be assured that you matter. Your presence makes a woman waiting at the bus stop alone, feel safe. I myself would not be able to spew these words out of my mind if I did not have the presence of these unknown faces around me as I type and type and type. And I think to myself, that if a known face were to walk toward me, I’d hold both their hands and exhilarate as though I were holding a mountain of breath inside me. That I’d have double the gratitude. Because to have even one person, is to have enough. Somehow the world becomes my muse. Your muse, our muse. Your goodness isn’t fleeting or unnoticed, it is alive and its waves give people the hope to keep walking and to not give up what little they may have left in them.

Each of us contribute, in some utterly odd yet eloquent way, and this exchange of humanity is as crucial for the earth to move around, the way it tirelessly does, as much as the movement of air particles, chemistry, physics, and biology. It is essential for the stability of life as we know it.

Life is too short to demean your own or anyone else’s importance. So please live, live kindly, live well. To add conclusively, your loneliness is one but a crack in the glass of your life that could be glued back with the gold of hope. Yes, the crack is there and yes you have every right to feel alone, to feel your emotions. But then, you must account for the fact that some things are puppets your mind has crafted and that they are to not be held as the only proof of your existence, if any at all. There are two kinds of delusion: one that ruins you, one that lets you hold your whimsy and wit with you, the nice kind. I’d rather that you be deluded by an unmistakable kind of optimism that can be felt in your bones. That everything is fine and it’ll be better than you could ever imagine at this moment. Do not spend moments thinking of how no one cares, or how seemingly “terrible” you think you are. Open your eyes, your ears, and listen. There is so much that cares about you and so much you care about, without the bounds of what you can do or cannot do for each other. The “just because” kind of care.

Live in the delusion that your being is essential, that you are the main character and so is everyone else around you (and treat them as such, if you get me). Do not forget, that you are in fact still remembered for that one incident on a train ten years ago, by those passengers, for your charming way with words and the immaculate finesse in which you lessened the burden of a fatigued mother who couldn’t get her child to sleep. You are a legend in her eyes. You are remembered even when you deem that you aren’t.

Someone once asked: what does it mean to be human? I think there isn’t a better way to put it than this:

in the dark times, will there also be singing?

yes, there will be singing.

about the dark times.