I Love You

Just over two years ago, I realized I love you. Yes, you. You reading this. Maybe even you sneering at this.

For the longest time, I was a backyard person. Someone who tends to their backyard, never looking beyond their own fence, worrying about my family, my friends, what is going to happen to me and my own. A twist of fate drew me down a dark path, severed me from a few people I thought would always be there for me, and forced me into a solitary journey. This sounds hard and cold and scary, but it was actually a stroke of luck, even though it was in fact hard and cold and scary. It felt crushing and heartbreaking at the time, but the longer I walked, the farther I went, the more time that passed, the less daunting the darkness became.

The denseness of my emotions let up. Finally, I saw a sliver of light. This, of course, is a figurative sort of light. The lightness of my heart, if you will, even though it sounds corny and self-helpish. It's the truth, though. I felt lighter. Freer. And I dismantled the fences around my backyard. Now, they no longer exist. There are no fences here. The world is my backyard. You are my friend. You are my family. And we may not have met, not yet at least, but I do care what happens to you.

And I love you.

I love you in the way I love every single tree and animal. I can't love your personal quirks. I don't know the cute way you say words or the frustrating opinions you have on political matters. We may be miles or countries apart, but not worlds. We are both here. On Earth. Living. Trying to exist. Most of us aren't scheming. The majority aren't bad. A lot of us are struggling. And sometimes we feel alone. But we aren't. We have things in common, even when it seems as if we are so different. We breathe and laugh and cry. There is this thread connecting us. It makes us a part of each other and joins us, not only by our base human instincts and genetic makeup, but our souls. Our hopes, dreams, and wishes. We are chemical and organic and made of the stars.

I understand these thoughts might seem radical, or ridiculous. Ridiculously radical. Radically ridiculous. It is easier to be a backyard person. To love your own. Sometimes it seems a tedious task to love those who seem undeserving, but aren't those the ones who need it most? In the end, I care about you. I want you to be happy and for good things to come to you. Sometimes I think about you. Think about how hard your day might have been, how far you've come from the person you used to be, and where you want to get to. These thoughts give me comfort, especially in my lowest of moments. Because if I am thinking about you, then maybe someone is thinking of me, and that means I'm not really alone. And I never will be.