What Brings Us Together

I have an overwhelming feeling that if you sat down a group of twenty-somethings from all walks of life, all ethnic and cultural backgrounds, all relationship statuses and religious backgrounds and social classes and sexual orientations, you could make them bond/discuss/open up/connect by using just ONE phrase that I guarantee every SINGLE one of them would relate to:

“This isn’t where I thought I’d be.”

Man. So few completely vague words in a sentence have the power to resonate with all of us. To shake us to our cores. To force us to rethink and overthink and try to forget our current situations and dwell on the pasts that we all are so desperately in need of remembering to learn from.

I’ve had about a bajillion conversations about this for the past month, it seems like. Seriously. Everyone I talk to is having some kind of realization when it comes to this; even the people who ‘have it together.’ I know now that, honestly, NOBODY has it together! (This includes me, of course.)

We are all struggling. And what’s so funny is that in a way, we’re all struggling with the same thing:

___  just turned out differently than we thought/planned.

It’s a heartbreaking thing, really. It can destroy us if we let it, worst-case scenario. But best-case scenario, we’re learning from something at some point and there’s something way better, something we can’t even fathom, for later.

How easy it is to fall into a trap; how difficult to hope for better.

I don’t know about you, but I take comfort in the fact that I’m not alone in this debacle. Somehow knowing that there are other people out there who are on a journey too makes it seem more manageable.

Why AREN’T we talking about it? Why does it sit in the silence? Why do we let it hang over us like a veil when we should be waving it like a flag that seems to sing out: “Me too!”

I’ve never really sat down and plotted/diagrammed it out, but we all meet the people in our lives for reasons we don’t know/won’t understand. None of this is by chance or accident.

All we have is our souls, God and each other. Really. And so I am thankful for those who are struggling with me. I’m not thankful for their struggling, of course; I’m just thankful that I know them and that they share in this hope. I pray that we all find contentment within our situations but also that we never stop acknowledging our trials or writing them off as unimportant or whining or whatever. Because I can think something to myself all day, but when I hear that you’re dealing with it too, I see myself in you and you in me and God in us. And there is harmony amidst the chaos.

“Please believe that things are good with me, and even when they’re not, they will be soon enough.

And I will believe the same about you.” (Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower.) 

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