You Are Not Alone

You are not alone.

I feel like I could say this 100 times a day, and still it would be not enough.

You are not alone.

I say it to myself. I say it other people. I say it to my dog. (I also tell him I like "his people" and to pass that word among them, but he just stares at me with one ear up/one ear down and I don't think he does anything with that nugget of information.)

You are not alone.

Why do I feel compelled to say this? Why do I try to build community everywhere I go, since my days as a child in nursery school right to this moment now in my hands? Why can't I stop?

Because you are not alone. Because I know how you feel in the dark moments, when the curtain has descended and all is blackness around, and you wonder if anybody knows, if anyone has ever felt this way, if anyone cares, if life will ever be sweet again, taste sweet, sound sweet, feel sweet, in this or any other lifetime.

I know how black the night gets. I know how silent the room gets. I know how sharp the pain is when your heart breaks – and it breaks a hundred times a day.

I know how sad and alone you feel. Because I feel that way, too.

And the only way that I rise above, that I keep breathing, keep living, keep existing until I find my way to laughter to lust to love to compassion or confrontation or coexistence again is simply this this this this: I remember that I am not alone.

So, believe me, you are not alone.

Keep going, Skippy. I'm here rooting for you.